


The Conflagration Codex

by Turdle



Series: The Soldier's Element [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Compliant, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist Manga, Cunnilingus, Drama, F/M, Friendship/Love, Pre-Canon, Romance, Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turdle/pseuds/Turdle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the death of her father, Riza Hawkeye reunites with his ex-apprentice, Roy Mustang. Between them both, they must unlock the secrets of Flame Alchemy, and discover the true beginnings of their path forwards. </p><p>[While this piece is technically a sequel to The Concupiscence Conjectures and The Logogriph Letters, it may be read without prior knowledge and as a stand-alone.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Amestris, 1905.

As Riza Hawkeye’s father slowly died, so too did the grandeur of the Hawkeye Manor.

 Weeks slipped into months, and as the illness tightened its vise-like grip on her father, Riza began to clear the remaining shadows of her father’s manias out of the estate. At eighteen, she had been more than a promising scholar, the top of her private academy class and a copy editing assistant for the ancient history professors of the intellectual nexus, Flamel University. There had been a promising path in store for Riza, had she chosen to follow it, and had her father’s health been different.

 But in the almost three full years it had been since Berthold Hawkeye’s apprentice had left, Riza found herself believing her father to be more mad than genius. Over the course of the first year, her father had begun his magnum opus writ across her skin, inked in solid maroon outlines the same color as dried blood. In the second year, he had filled in the texts of the tattoo, spending hours arranging the words and inking the letters into her skin, until finally, it was completed. Riza bore the key to her father’s masterpiece; in some small sense, his lucidity still led her father to trust her, even if everyone else was subject to paranoid delusion. 

For the third year, Riza sold the excess furniture in order to pay off their debts.  Her mother’s private study was stripped bare of its effects, and Riza sold her desk, salvaging the late Theresa Hawkeye’s writing desk for herself. One by one, she had lessened the hours of the servants, before finally dismissing the remaining maid and butler. Riza had not seen her old Governess in years, and the maid had never been particularly at ease around her father and the looming secrets of the household - the man who locked himself away for days, and the silent daughter who came and left for school with aches on her shoulders, and bandages under her collars. 

It had put Riza more at ease to fire the woman than to try and continue to stretch her budget running a household that functioned as her father’s coffin. The house withered as the seasons changed, and weeds overtook the gardens, splitting the cobbled stone paths and gnarling up the sides of the house. In the thick of summer, the house had been warm, but hazy, as if drugged into a stumbling sleep. But as fall had crept up on its heels, Riza was reminded that the Manor was drafty, the woods of the staircases creaked, and the house was just as much a shell as her father was. 

She was the only living thing left in the Estate, more out of place than the weeds that grew there - Riza Hawkeye was too stubborn, too hardy, and too _alive_ to fit well with the Hawkeye household. 

In the end, it wasn’t a surprise, only a shock. For years, Riza had watched her father’s health slip, his mind fading to places that were darker, and more devouring than had ever existed before. The damp grew in his lungs, and consumption overtook him, leaving him coughing long and hard for hours, seizing in his bed. The slow and agonizing death of Berthold Hawkeye had brought about the fast fade of Riza’s life in the neighboring city of Flamel. With little else to do, Riza had seen her roommate Yvette off when she decided to withdraw from Flamel Academy after her fiance’s death two years prior, and then had graduated with little fanfare, skipping the ceremony altogether, instead opting to have her diploma sent in the post. Her friends’ letters arrived in advance of her degree, and Riza had wrote them back with care, enthusing over the mundane stories that they regaled her with. Normal was a slice of peace amidst dreariness. 

The day her father died was the day her diploma arrived, bestowing upon her her first degree.

The day her father died, Roy Mustang had also arrived, searching for his last chance to take flame alchemy from her father’s teachings.

It wasn’t only surprise when she found Roy shouting and clutching her father’s corpse, it was also numbness. 

For over two years, Riza had forgotten what Roy Mustang felt like standing next to her, what his presence by a graveside meant to her. The world around her had collapsed, and the dirt beneath her shoes was freshly disturbed, as if to confirm this observation. If Riza was sad, she couldn’t feel the weight of it under the weight of her shoulders, her back heavy with Roy’s words. Closing her eyes, she tried to forget what Roy had come for, what he had really wanted - because she was so sure it was not her. She had, after all, told him to stay away, to not write her anymore.

And now, given the choice, she couldn’t help her desire to make him stay. He understood, intrinsically, why her father had been wrong in turning him away. Maybe even how foolish her father had been in believing _she_ would follow in his footsteps perfectly. Beyond anything else, Roy knew why Riza felt a funny, churning desire to change something, any little thing she could, for the people she cared about, for the good of the country. _He understood_. What else, exactly, did she have to lose now? She could no longer lose her father, or her home, and Roy had been gone long enough that Riza suspected she could not lose him either, not quite the same way as before. 

 

_‘What will you do from now on?’_

_‘I’ll think about it.’_

 

Dying on the side of the road like trash, like Roy suggested - it didn’t have to be meaningless. If she could prevent just one other person from dying that way, the way Yvette’s fiancé had died, then perhaps it was worth it. The crisp cream military card Roy had given her slipped easily into her black jacket’s pocket, and she fingered the edge of the card through the fabric. She had thought about the army ever since Roy had left for the Academy. The military could give her something no one else had; she could have _joined_ her cause. That was another option, an alternative to waiting at home to hear about the front lines of a battle far away. She could save people, she could protect them. 

It was worth thinking about. It was certainly worth the sudden, urgent desires as her father had spit up blood, or driven ink into her skin; the niggling notion that perhaps some day, she _would_ be doing, instead of waiting. Or pretending not to wait. Her scholarly studies had begun to matter less and less when her research hit a bump in the road and she had begun selling things to pay off debts. Perhaps that roadblock had been for the better. 

It had all been just a dream of course, a wild, fanciful dream, but - “I think it’s a wonderful dream.” Riza had said aloud, smiling to herself in agreement. Roy’s eyes fell over her, and she bowed her head, hiding the quiet tremble of her lips before she said the words she had been waiting for. Roy Mustang would stay, if she told him. Not just for her, but - 

“ _Is it alright to believe in a future where everyone can live in happiness?”_

— If he stayed for that alone, then it didn’t matter. 

When they left her father’s graveside, Riza led Roy back to the manor quietly, bringing him back through the dim halls. The inside of the sitting room had once been privy to their heated, wandering hands, and now, Riza mused, it was once again the setting for a scene where her shirt would fall to the ground and Roy would watch. 

This time, it was another intimacy altogether.

 She trusted her back to him.

 Riza no longer heard his breath catch in his throat when the last button slipped from her blouse, and the collar slipped past her shoulders. Two years ago, he would have kissed the nape of her neck, and tentatively brought a hand to cup her breasts. Today, Riza breathed in slowly as she straightened, the lines of her serpents moving on her back as she inhaled and exhaled. The picture was almost the same, but the frame was different now. 

There was no way for her to know how quickly Roy’s face had fallen, although she did hear a soft hitch in his breathing as he spoke. 

“Your father—“ he began, anger tinging his words. 

“—I agreed to it.” Riza said definitively. “I needed to be able to control what happened to his work.” She shifted, a passing draft in the room causing her to shiver, goosebumps raising over her bared flesh. She had told him not to write her. Not to contact her. And in those two years, she had only felt the strangeness of his absence from her goings-on. 

When you were accustomed to someone’s presence, it was hard to excise it from yourself, to know, without a doubt, that the passing face on the street wasn’t really him at all. There had been some nights where she had dreamed of what the code on her back could do, what sort of brilliance it would create, what Roy would do with it when she released it from herself. Other nights, she had just dreamed of him.

“I know what it looks like. Given the circumstances, I’m not sure I could have said no. But now I have my father’s most precious thing, and I can _control_ it. That’s where you come in.” 

In her defense, Riza didn’t know very many other alchemists she could have turned to. And now she needed him to decode what was there. It wasn’t fair, but, “I didn’t think there would be anyone else to turn to with this. I haven’t…”

“I’m sorry.” Roy said, his voice recovering as he tried to smooth over the shock in his voice.

 Riza crossed her arms across her chest, and turned to look over her shoulder, eying him carefully. 

“Can you do it?” 

It was then that he did something unexpected, a small movement that caused something unnaturally warm to shift within Riza for a moment. Heaving a sigh, he raked his eyes over her, her shoulders, her neck, the curve of her jaw, before he glanced at her eyes uncertainly for the first time since he’d first arrived to her home. He looked strangely saddened.

 “Yes, I - that’s what I came for, I suppose. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

Relief flooded her chest. “I’m glad, Mister Mustang.” 

Something caught in his throat that unsettled her as he asked, “When should I start?”

“You already have.” Seemed like the best answer to give. Riza leaned forwards to pick up her shirt to hold over her chest. She turned around to face him again. 

He was taller still, maybe two whole inches above her, and if she wanted to kiss him now, she might have had to tilt her chin upwards, might have to rock forwards against his chest. The fact that the idea raced through her mind at all was unsettling, and Riza bit her lip in thought, as if doing so would refrain her from doing anything stupid. She hadn’t really forgotten, after all, but maybe he had moved on. She wouldn’t have known. She would have been happy for him. If anything she was offering the last thing he’d been missing before him - Flame Alchemy was in his reach. 

Perhaps she also factored in to that equation, and perhaps she didn’t.

“We should go to my room.” Riza said, and she knew what it sounded like, but she couldn’t think of going into his old room, which was now empty. The bed and books were sold, and all that was left were the frames of things that wouldn’t be filled again.

 Her own room, on the other hand, was still occupied. Comfortable, and warmer than the rest of the house, and best of all, unmarred by the broken gloom of the rest of the manor.

 “I’ll lie down, and then you can examine what’s there, on a preliminary sort of basis, take any notes you need from me, and then you can use my father’s study and library to work on the codes…” she continued, ostensibly unwilling to allude to anything she had just considered. It wasn’t the right moment. Or it shouldn’t have been, Riza was not sure which.

 He followed her up the stairs they once once hid beneath, his gaze watching her as she opened the door to her room, baring the remnants of the past, with light floral blanket thrown over purple sheets on her bed. They were Roy’s favorite color, and she didn't know why she remembered this.

Roy’s eyes were blacker than she remembered, still bright, but slightly sharper. The humor might still have been there, but he was in shock. Maybe they both were. 

Roy swallowed, then looked away. “ _—Riza_ ,” 

It only took the way her name sounded in the timbre of his voice for her to feel truly exposed. 

“-I don’t think I can do this right now. Right this second. It’s,” pushing his hand through his thick black hair, he searched for the right word. “This is all a lot for me to process. For you to process, maybe. Your father just died, and I watched him…I need _time_ , maybe. We both do.” 

Then more quietly, Roy added, “I missed you. I suppose you don’t want to know that.”

It was in that moment that Riza realized she could speak, and tell him dozens of things she hadn’t been able to tell him in so long, but that she couldn’t. Brandy eyes softened apologetically, and her shoulders slumped a fraction, but what else was there to say, really? She had missed him too. Against her better judgement, she had wondered how long it would be before Roy came back. 

“I know.” 

It only took that small confession.

 The intention had been to lay on her bed while he examined her back like a the pages of one of her father’s alchemy books, but somehow Riza’s hands released her shirt and found the collar of Roy’s dress uniform, and she clung onto the flap of it tightly. Her fists wound into the wool, and he stumbled back into her bed gracelessly, and then with self-awareness as she nudged him further onto the mattress. Regret was a sour taste to leave in one’s mouth for too long, and Roy’s hands went to her waist without a second thought. 

In the interim since their last meeting, her body had changed. She knew it, sensed that her hips were wider and legs more shapely than before - stronger since she started running regularly. But she was also sure her chest was fuller, and it gave her what Yvette would have called a very pronounced hour glass figure. In an odd fashion, she realized how she had felt adult before this moment didn't quite compare to how she felt now. 

Roy Mustang was a man, a man she still wanted, and he wanted her too. He was broader and heavier, and more sure when he met her mouth for her crushing kiss. 

His hands slid across her back and she knew he felt her and not the tattoo. It was reassuring to think of when Roy fell against her pillow, black hair spreading out over the cotton, and when she straddled his waist and began to remove his jacket. There was no way he objected to her chest being bared for him again, and it lit a triumphant flare in her cheeks when he stared, fascinated, _enthralled_ , even, but still dazed, still shocked. 

It was a lot for him to process, but Riza had processed for years that her father was just a corpse. 

There was a moment where she had him so surprised, so honed in on his fantasy about this very situation, that he reacted without thought. It was long enough that Riza hummed against his lips, coaxed his tongue against hers, and had exposed his bare chest, now so cut and defined that she could break a statue more easily than she could him. The muscle felt strong under her hands; thick, firm, and his skin was warmer than remembered, but then the moment was over, and Roy knew what she was doing.

 It wasn’t the right moment, but it felt like a needed one. Water to flames. Thirst to fever. 

“ _Riza_ ,” he said gently, before she broke away and collapsed quietly against his chest, saying nothing. 

“Riza, I’m so sorry.” His hands tightened around her, and he held her as she shook dryly against him. “I didn’t know, if I’d _known--_ ”

“Don’t, _please_. I’m sorry.” There was a small amount of truth in her apology. “My father just died, and I just - I don’t know what I was trying to do, you don’t  _owe_  me anything, you took care of the burial and the debts, and I just—“

“It’s okay. Look, don’t worry about it, I wanted to be here, I need to know if you’re going to be okay, if you need anything…” Roy smiled, brushing her hair away from her eyes in a quiet gesture. “I’m here again. You can kick me out later.”

“There’s no where else for you to _go_. I sold the guest beds, and my father’s room...”

“All the more reason for me to stay here with you.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” she defended, relaxing under his hands. 

There had been a time when Roy didn’t sound hurt when she said such things, but now, his sigh spoke depths that she couldn’t probe. It saddened her that she had lost that ability, if only a little, and his voice sounded wary, _tired_ in a way she didn’t expect. “I know.”

In the smallest of ways, they were no longer the same to each other, and Riza felt the nakedness of her skin, the dry air over her tattoo which had always been covered. Roy must have known her discomfort, must have felt it too, or seen it in the lines of her shoulders curving, because he pulled her blanket over her back, wrapping them both in it. 

“How long can you stay?” seemed to mitigate some of the heaviness in his eyes, and for a moment, she thought Roy could smile at her. Instead, he quietly stroked her cheek with calloused fingers. His scholar’s hands were now undeniably the hands of a soldier.

“I have some leave time before my final year starts and I get stationed in Central. Maybe a month, a month and a half, if I leave for the State exams.” 

A shudder ripped through her throat, and she leaned in, resting against his collar as Roy pulled her closer, stroking her hair. 

He was calm, and patient, and when the words finally came, they were not the ones that asked him to stay. There was Roy Mustang, and there _wasn’t_. But now, there were more pressing things at stake, and Riza simply closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to fall after months of holding them in. 

“I should have hated him for this. I should hate him for dying.” She didn't - or couldn't - hate her father for what he did. 

Or maybe she was simply too tired to do so at the moment, too stunned, too worn out. Without her father to rationalize his methods, she could't find them rational at all, could not imagine why she let him mark her back, or what sort of emotion he had even felt towards her.

 It had been hard to tell, after all, how much he cared when he wasn’t lucid. Most of all, she did not have the energy to resent the emptiness she was left with yet; the loneliness of the world without a direction. 

There was simply nothing but Roy and her. 

So she took what he offered.

On that first night, all Roy did was hold her and resent her father on her behalf. 


	2. Chapter 2

That morning, Riza's fingers had hit flesh before they hit fabric. A warm sensation flooded her, and she felt herself relax against the body beside hers. There had never been a time before when her dreams were met with something that could assuage the knotting in her stomach, but now the boy who proudly proclaimed he’d give his life for their country lay asleep in her bed. 

Her hand trailed over Roy’s exposed chest before she flattened her palm over his heart, and felt the slight thrum. Asleep, he lacked the new military preciseness of posture, and his hair fell over his eyes, mussed from the pillows. He looked hardly half as mature as he had the night before, and his face had relaxed into a kind of softness that squeezed something raw in her chest. They’d both fallen asleep as they were last night and he’d wrapped himself around her, arms slung over her waist, pinning her close. 

She had needed it the night before. Riza couldn’t say she didn’t need it now, as she breathed in, shaking off the dreamed images of her father’s manias, of the texts that were rendered onto her back. It was nice to be in his embrace again, if not overly warm. The last, and only other time they had shared a bed had been shortly after they had shared each other. Then, Riza had fallen asleep without thinking of the space between them. Now, his body was as overwhelming as it was welcomed. His form had curved protectively around her, and his knee nudged into the side of her legs while he breathed warmly across her skin. Roy had lost the spots where he ended and she begun, and the positioning was awkward, albeit earnest.

When she moved to lay her head back down on her pillow, Roy stirred, black eyes blearily blinking back at her. He seemed worried more than anything else, but his lips curved into a pleased smile before it petered out and consciousness swung back in with full force. 

Maybe he had been happy to see her, but that hadn’t negated everything else. Riza moved to shrug the sheets back up over her chest as she shifted, looking away from his unmoving gaze. He was thinking and she felt it in his gaze; the way Roy processed things was still familiar to her, the keen measurement of his words before the final thoughts were placed out in the open. Maybe years ago he would have given her a code, leapt to recite something clever, but now he sighed softly, and looked up at the dark ceiling of her bedroom. His expression fell under the shadows of her room, and after a long pause he finally spoke. 

“You wouldn’t have let me help you, even if I’d known, would you?” 

Riza bit her lip. “It wasn’t a pity case. I did what I could. My father was going to die, eventually. I expected it. He was suffering.”

 He had completed his research, and had stopped thinking. Curiosity had left her father, and all that remained had been the muddled concoctions of his mind; things that twisted reality while disease ate at his lungs. It was a matter of time that had killed him, not a lack of effort to nurse him back to health. Money would have just prolonged the suffering, slowed the illness. If there was one thing Riza knew, it was that you could not stop death in its tracks. She had sometimes wondered if she would have even wanted to try. Certainly, her father had shown no interest in the idea. 

“I never thought of you like that.” He protested, rolling up and onto his elbow as he looked over at Riza. Roy hesitated, leaning over her for a moment before the he finally settled on another sigh. “I cared. Was that so wrong? You know I would have-“

“-Exactly my point.” Riza said, moving away to sit up, her blanket still drawn to her collar where she held it. It wasn’t for the sake of modesty; that wasn’t her primary concern. Instead, she fought off the slight chill of the house by keeping herself as covered as she could be. 

Sitting upright, Riza exposed the length of her back to Roy’s view as she closed her eyes and breathed in calmly. “I told you, you had your goals, I had mine. You couldn’t just leave the Academy. I knew what would have happened if you’d known just how bad off my father was after you left.” 

“I would have helped you.” Roy said, voice displeased. Riza turned to look over her shoulder, and caught his thoughtful frown. She shook her head, bangs slipping over her eyes for a moment. 

“You already were.” It was strange to think of it but his insistence on becoming a soldier had strengthened her faith as much as it had separated them. She had believed in Roy’s tenacity, knew that when it really came down to it, his dedication completely overrode his more lax tendencies. 

“I don’t want you to be anything like my father. And being a soldier is what you _wanted_. I knew that you were there, and I knew you had made up your mind. That was enough.” That had been help, in any moment she found herself lost in or unsure of. And perhaps Roy didn’t understand it because she hadn’t given him the leniency to know it the way she had, but it lay there anyways. He was hope for something completely different.

 “I couldn’t dissuade my father from his ideas, but I _can_ choose who wields flame alchemy. And I knew you would understand why— my father saw science, he never saw people. What alchemy is for— ” She breathed deep, fingers smoothing over her blanket as she tried to flatten the wrinkling in the fabric. Bringing her other hand to the back of her neck, she felt the ridges of her spine. Riza swept her hand over the top of her tattoo, palm instinctively curling over the text she couldn’t feel and couldn’t read. Her father had seen alchemy, not her. 

She swallowed, then looked down at her knees. “I trust you, you know.” Riza said quietly. 

Roy pushed forwards, leaning towards her as he gently placed a hand on her arm. Her breathing scattered for a moment and Riza gripped the blanket more tightly. Though she hadn’t meant to tense, Roy’s warm calloused hand had sent another wave of heat through her skin, electric and comforting. 

“I promise,” Roy said, his resting his forehead against her shoulder. “I won’t forget that.”

Unable to word her gratitude, Riza merely nodded. 

“We should start getting to work. I can make breakfast, and we can figure out what books we’ll need from your father’s study. And then we can bring those to the library.” He suggested, before slowly withdrawing from his place at her shoulder, the warmth of his skin vanishing and leaving her feeling colder than before. 

Riza tilted her head, looking over at him as he moved. “That sounds amenable, Mister Mustang.” She replied, as he rolled his neck, and stretched out.

“You don’t have to keep calling me that, you know. I’d like to think we’re beyond being formal in private, even if we did fall out of contact.” He looked at her calmly for a moment, and then pressed his lips together into a thin line.

Leveling him with a look, Riza searched for the stubbornness in his eyes. “You know I mean you. The words don’t matter, even if it’s just us.” But if it was something that bothered him, she would fall out of the habit temporarily. This was him, after all. And the extension of his words and comfort had lifted her heart. 

She hadn’t thrown this away entirely after all.

“I suppose.” Roy said, rolling out of her bed as he reached for her robe that hung over the chair at her writing desk. He gingerly picked it up, and then proffered the robe to her, keenly aware of the early morning chill. 

“Thank you,” Riza said, quietly taking it from him before she slipped it on. “— _Roy.”_ She added. 

He rocked on his feet for a moment, before commenting, “You _do_ remember.”

“Did I tell you I would forget you and your ego, Roy Mustang?” The question was light, but the words sunk down beneath his skin, and Riza saw yet another flicker of an emotion that Roy would pretend he didn’t have. 

“I thought you would try, for your own sake.” Roy answered, smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothes, buttoning back up the same shirt he had slept in without bothering to pick up his uniform coat from off the floor. It seemed evident that he was avoiding its presence, edging around the dark dyed wool as he made his way to her bedroom door. “That was what you wanted, wasn’t it? I don’t remember all the finer details at this point, the train ride back served scotch neat, and the specifics seemed unimportant at the time.”

Riza swallowed. “ _Roy_ ,” 

“I’m not angry.” He said with a sigh, closing his eyes and fanning black lashes over pale skin. “I just thought I was doing you a service by not writing, is all. I had at least fooled myself into thinking you were happier with less to worry about.” His eyes shuttered open again and his gaze wandered the room, before looking back towards the door. 

“But your father was dying, and you were here—“

“I didn’t need to be _saved_ , Roy.” Riza said sharply, pulling her robe tighter against her. 

This more than anything, seemed to frustrate him and the mask slipped. He was _upset_ , if not angry. 

“No, you _didn’t_ need to be saved. I understand that, believe me,” Roy pressed on, “I know. But being there for you isn’t saving you from anything. I’m not asking why you didn’t _need_ me, I’m asking why you didn’t—“ He fell short, then looked at the ground, apparently disturbed by his outburst. 

“I’m sorry. Forget it. It’s none of my business.” His hands slipped into his pockets, and for a moment, he struggled with more words, jaw muscles twitching as he clenched his teeth. 

“I was scared.” Riza said, rising to stand barefoot on her rug. “Maybe that was stupid. But it didn’t feel right to just pull you along any time I felt alone. We both got the chance to pretend, didn’t we? I thought you were going to be happier without…without being tied to something in another part of the country that you couldn’t even talk about. You thought I was happier not worrying about you.” Maybe that had all been for the best, their made up stories about each other. It was certainly less pressing than the realities. 

“What if someone had suspected about your learning my father’s alchemy? If they’d come after you, instead of me for my father’s research—?” Riza asked, folding her arms across her chest carefully.

The blood in Roy’s face drained, and he looked sallow for a moment, struggling to word the question he was afraid of the answer to. “Did someone come looking for…for the code?” 

Riza looked away. “Of course they did. They didn’t find it, if that’s what you’re asking. Not that _that’s_ any of your business either,” she said, pausing with a frustrated exhale. “If you want to hide something, you do it in plain sight. But if these people had seen _you_ coming to see me, then maybe they would have tried to intimidate it out of you. I don’t know that the consequences would have been an acceptable risk to take. I don’t know what they would have done to you. Or me.” 

“They could still figure it out.” Roy protested. “If anyone _dared_ ,”

“I told them my father had never made notes they could take with them. I’d burn this house down before they found anything. I don’t think my father would have even noticed.”

“And what about you?” He pressed. 

“What about it? The man who studied flame alchemy’s house going up in a fire…it would be ironic, wouldn’t it? I think the alchemists who wanted to buy flame alchemy off of my father believed me when I said I would do it if they came looking again, and that the notes didn’t exist for them to take. I certainly hope _you_ believe me.” Riza said solemnly, staring at the wood grain of her door behind his shoulders. She was no alchemist, but Riza knew enough about starting fires that she was fairly certain she could have done it, and escaped if she had needed to. 

There was another remark she had to address. “I didn’t forget you, even if I did try. But then you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain either.” She said, giving him an even, level look.

Roy shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “Of course I thought about you. You compartmentalize things  better than I do, Riza. You see every little piece in the places you need them, you - I mean you’ve really got that down, and I just can’t. I don’t separate threatening to burn the house down to protect a, a bunch of alchemic _formulas_ from the fact that you’re - you’re what needs to be kept safe here.” He bit his lip for a moment, and then sighed. 

“We had something - whatever it was, it was a good thing, and you wanted me to compartmentalize that away. I couldn’t just _do_ that, like you could. So I thought about you, and I missed you terribly, and I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. But I felt like I could have done something, and I didn’t. All I did was get promoted to my last year as a cadet.” 

“I didn’t want you to do anything.” 

“I know. _I know._ But it didn’t work, not for you, and not for me, and I’m sorry for dragging you into this, but you don’t seem to want me to change anything to fix it _either_.”

“There’s nothing broken.” Riza said flatly. 

Roy gave her a frustrated look, clenching and unclenching his hands before he turned away, and opened her bedroom door. 

“Nothing is _broken_. Did you ever stop to think that this is what I wanted?” 

He hesitated in her doorway, hands holding on to the frame of her door, as if he was holding himself back in her room. “Which part?” 

“Well when you’re not being a complete idiot, _this_.” She gestured between them. “Being together on our own terms, instead of working around my father, or your goals. We could work on them together like this, and if we have to be apart, then knowing that I support you, while I figure out whatever it is I’m going to do to settle my affairs here and move forwards.” Riza said quietly, taking a few steps forwards until she found herself in front of him, hand hovering at his shoulder.

He watched, tense before she placed her palm at his collar, and then looked at her, waiting. 

“I was afraid of losing you and not being able to do anything to stop it. But I have something now; something that _will_ protect you. I’m not sure how powerful flame alchemy is; if my father was telling the truth about it or not, I don’t know. But if it _could_ keep you safe, I wouldn’t have to be so afraid of losing you.” 

Roy reached out, fingers gently caressing the side of her cheek as he pushed back a lock of gold hair behind her ear. “Is…is that what you want? To protect me?” 

Riza nodded. 

“I want you to be the Flame Alchemist. Maybe that will mean you’ll be the most powerful alchemist the world will see. Maybe it won’t. But it could save you, if you needed it to. It could save a lot of people. People like Yvette’s fiancé, other soldiers.” She said, running her fingers over his buttons, and furrowing her brows in thought, in concern. 

“So yes.” Riza confirmed, watching the way his chest rose and fell as she tended to his shirt. “If you’re alive, I can always come to where you are. I can find you again. And that’s what matters. That’s…that’s what I can offer, anyways. You had - _have -_ every right to move on, if you’re still upset or hurt, but I want—“ 

The world tilted, and Riza’s words fell short, stopping before they hit Roy’s lips as he leaned forwards, and kissed her with an emotional reverence she was entirely certain he would never talk about. His lips pressed insistently against hers, and she felt the heat of his breath as he slid his hand around her waist, and pulled her closer to him. A moment passed, and he did nothing more than kiss her, mouth tender and breathing quiet as they reacquainted themselves with clearer heads. There was a whisper of his tongue against her lips, coaxing and pressing, and Riza opened her mouth, and slid her hands up the back of his neck. There again, Riza smelled the  heavy scent of his aftershave, and felt the soft pressure of his mouth winding her closer until she felt something like light building inside her. 

It seemed that he felt it too, and Roy broke away softly, kissing her quickly once more before he leaned himself against her, grabbing her hand and holding it within his own. 

“I’ll be the flame alchemist.” He said.

It was then that Riza smiled in return, lightly touching his jaw. “Thank you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely comments I've received are sincerely appreciated and greatly enjoyed. Thanks, everyone.


	3. Chapter 3

The Hawkeye library had once been beautiful. Floor to ceiling filled with books, it had, in Riza’s early childhood, been a grand room with thick imported carpets and dark wood shelves. A heavy gold astrolabe sat upon an end table, a large map of Xerxes was spread over the walls across from the large, imposing windows; their presence had once spoken of wealth and intellectualism. Now, they were covered in fine layers of dust that filtered through the bars of sunlight that came through the windows, and worn beyond their wealth. 

Riza had laid out one of her blankets across the lounging couch that sat across from the window. When she arranged everything comfortably over the cushions, she slipped her robe down over her shoulders, exposing herself to her waist, where the fabric puddled around her seated form. Roy remained fairly silent as he pulled research texts from the shelves, flipping dozens of different texts open, and seemingly stopping when he found something he thought was going to be helpful. When he finally seemed satisfied, he looked back at her, and paused, staring long enough to cause Riza to feel his eyes on her skin. The library had once been beautiful, but Roy acted as if once and present were one and the same; the alchemy was enough to suffice, the _science_ was the most beautiful thing in the room. 

The fact that Riza was the one wearing the most important alchemy text in the room only seemed to improve his mood. 

“Are you comfortable?” he asked, sitting down before the couch. 

“Mhmm,” Riza nodded, dropping her head, tucking her chin against her chest. “You should get started while we still have daylight.” 

“It’s only ten,” Roy laughed, flipping open a page of his black notebook. 

“Exactly. This could take days,” she shifted, her ink twisting as her spine moved.

“Maybe,” Roy hedged. “It could take all month.” From behind her, Riza heard the pen scratch across one of his pages, and counted the marks she heard. He was writing out the date.

“I wouldn’t mind if it did,” she said softly. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Roy curled on the floor, rolling out a cloth set of sketching pencils and graphite in varying shades. While he had never been one to call himself an artist, Riza had seen Roy’s technical drawings slowly but surely improve. He could sketch maps, draw complex arrays, with perfect, even circles. If he intended to unravel the magnum opus on her back, then she trusted that he could faithfully replicate it in his own sketches. 

“Did you ever think you’d see anything like this?” Riza asked, as Roy looked back up at her from under unruly bangs, sketching pencil in hand. 

“Which part? You tattooed, or an alchemy code that requires semi-nudity to decipher?” he raised a brow to emphasize his point, although the mischief didn’t quite reach the spark of his eyes. 

“Either, I suppose. I don’t think I ever planned to get a tattoo,” Riza said, resting her chin on her shoulder as Roy rocked up to his knees to get a better look at her back. She could hear him breathe; in, out, and again, comforting and rhythmic as he began to examine the ink. 

“Honestly, I didn’t expect to see you again at all,” The softness of his words ran over her skin, and she felt the air charge itself with every place he almost reached out to touch. “…I always assumed tattooing was practical for _alchemists_ , but,” 

“—But I’m no alchemist,” Riza finished with a nod, turning away to avert her gaze again. “I would have sought you out, if you hadn’t come. To pass this on to someone I knew would use it well.” That wasn’t the whole of the story though, and while there was much she could simply try to convey by the hope bound tightly in her bones, Riza knew she would have to tell Roy the truth, if she wanted answers. Confirmations. 

She licked her lips, and then bowed her head as his pencil began to scratch against the paper once more. “I apologize for presuming last night—“

“-Don’t apologize. Obviously I didn’t stop you.” 

Riza frowned, but pressed on. “—presuming that my advances were welcomed or even that you were unspoken for, given the circumstances, I didn’t know that was the case, and should have asked…” Enough time had passed. Things had changed, and Riza would not act as if they hadn’t. Whatever his initial reaction, the comfort he brought her, she wouldn’t impose it upon him. Not if there was something he was afraid to tell her.

His sigh caressed her skin. “The first layer of this code doesn’t mention fire at all.” 

“Hmm?” Riza tensed, train of thought lost. 

“The most important thing isn’t always obvious. The key to understanding the creation of fire isn’t to think about fire, it’s describing how fire can exist. This looks like it’s all about gasses; oxygen, hydrogen, helium…” Roy replied, bowing his head over his notes while he wrote down another line of text and annotations. “I didn’t want someone else.”

“I tried to date. I went on dates with the university scholars in Flamel, but,” Riza closed her eyes, thinking of laughing, but refrained. She had trained herself to try not to shake under her father’s handiwork, and now it was deeply engrained. “I have a better tolerance for you than I did any of them.”

“You dated?” Roy asked cautiously, voice flat enough that Riza knew he was trying not to betray any particular emotion on the matter. 

“I did. I had hoped I would move on before you did.” Slumping her shoulders, she thought back to the cafe trips in town and the less than pleasant arguments over theory and primary sources she had had with her attempted suitors. None of them had made it beyond a date, certainly none of them had been like Roy, who in his own way, had never technically dated her to begin with. “I have a high tolerance for you, I suppose. And they were all…” Riza wrinkled her nose, searching for the right word. “— _Insufferable_.”

“I’m glad I’m tolerable, then,” Roy said, as he continued to sketch brief shapes within his notes. “There’s a lot of information here, by the way. I’m guessing there’s three keys, and four codes in this text. I don’t know why they’re not an equal number, but maybe one of the codes _is_ a key. On the surface it all looks simple, but—“ Roy paused, sighing. 

“The upper and lower portions of the tattoo have the same text, which is different from what’s on the sides. Then there’s the molecule arrangements and outer symbols at the cardinal directions, and finally the array pattern in the center,” he explained, pencil making broad, sweeping strokes as he sketched out the interlocking pieces of the puzzle. 

“Looks are deceiving. It doesn’t sound simple at all.” 

“Not hardly. I think your father designed this to be nearly impossible to crack. I can see two different forms of Xerxian, several chemical equations, and just about every symbol for fire I can think of, but none of them make any sense.” A moment passed as Roy studied the codex, and then he leaned over onto the edge of the couch, propping his elbow up beside Riza. 

“You don’t happen to know what the first key is, do you? Because I think I can recognize a line here, but,” he trailed off, realizing his gaze had been fixed at the length of her arm that covered her chest. Averting his eyes, Roy tapped the cushions. 

“My father didn’t mention how it was coded. Just that I would recognize it. He burned the design papers after he finished,” she looked down at him, smiling thinly. There had to be a way to break the code, some sort of hint to the key that Roy would use. 

Sharing a look, they both paused to consider. Every alchemist had a code to conceal their works from simple understanding. But whatever Berthold’s code had been, Riza couldn’t say. It had to be something of importance. 

Something they could _access_. 

“The top text is written normally, but the bottom looks like it’s been mirrored and then written backwards,” Roy said quietly, resting his chin on the couch as he tried to slip deeper into his thoughts. “The top is an old myth, I recognize the fragment: ‘ _Mankind shall have fir_ e…’. But it’s just an old story about stealing the power of the gods. That doesn’t _tell_ me anything.”

“It tells you that you should consider paying more attention to your ancient literature. It explains containing fire. That’s why the symbols are about air, isn’t it?” Riza suggested, looking down at Roy.

“I think I follow. We can’t just _make_ fire. If there’s no control to the reaction, I think it would blow up in our faces. Quite literally.” 

“So control the atmosphere of the flame. ‘… _despite the tyrant gods upon the mountaintop_ ,’ should be the next line.” 

Biting his lip, Roy pushed off the couch to read the words spread over her shoulder blades. Riza waited calmly as he took his time translating the Xerxian before finally humming in affirmation.

“It continued on like that. I think we’re looking at code for the control of the alchemic reaction.” 

Riza nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s the beginning, but the last piece you need to ensure everything works.”

“So you’re saying that I should solve this last?” 

“I’m suggesting that the keys and codes read cyclically. You start and end in the beginning. A full rotation, like the serpents around the array,” Riza said, fingers sliding over the ties of the robe that fell around her waist. It would only make sense for an alchemy code for an array to be just as circular as the array itself. Her father had often mentioned the image of the ouroborus, of the never ending circle, of cycles and nature moving in movements. That was what alchemy was - comprehension, deconstruction, reconstruction - a cycle which could be repeated. 

“Suppose every piece of text enlightens us on the understanding of the next piece. The code could be mythological, and every reference leads to another key in the translation from the literature to the science—“ It could be a myth, a poem, perhaps even a ritual if they were going to choose something reasonably obscure enough to disguise the true purpose in. It was possible, Riza thought, that her father’s work had been meant as a piece of historic work as much as it had been a piece of art, or a science. 

“With certain Xerxian texts, there’s a marker of cadence and verse numbering that could easily be read as mathematical records of the reactions there; I bet if you could find out how those texts employ the numbers, you’d have a part of the—“ Riza stopped, realizing Roy had gone silent. She turned, raising a blonde brow back at him as she glanced over her shoulder. “Are you even paying attention?” 

He gave her a soft look, pointing to a spot on her right shoulder blade. “I was reading through, and I noticed you had a freckle right there, in between the lines.” His fingers hovered just beyond the reach of her skin, and then Roy  retracted, curling his hand into a fist at his side. A long moment passed as he stared, fascinated.

“Where?” Riza asked, without thought. 

The loftiness of the library fell away as Roy’s eyes darkened in response to her question. It was an expression Riza had once found familiar, but laced with a greater range of unpredictability. She inhaled, and then he answered, tilting his chin as he pressed his lips to the smooth expanse of her skin. There was a sudden rush of heat from his lips, and Riza shivered, eyes fluttering closed as he attentively drew his lips across her skin before withdrawing gently. 

“I hadn’t kissed you there, last time,” he explained quietly. 

Riza turned, exposing the side of her chest as she swung down her leg and gently nudged him with her foot. It was dangerous to get caught up in him again, to follow where desire led her when there was so much work to be done. Dangerous, but tempting.

 _He didn’t want someone else_.

Roy fell back slightly at her gentle push, and pressed the flats of his palms against the floor as he looked back up at her. 

“You missed me,” Roy said with a wicked smile that caused Riza’s pulse to quicken slightly. Pushing back up, he knelt beside the chaise lounge, leaning into her bared leg. Riza’s toes brushed against the rug carpet, and she shifted, pulling the robe around her waist.

“I didn’t miss your procrastination,” she whispered stubbornly. There was a last line of sense and reason in her body, but Roy bit his lip, pulling his bottom lip under his teeth, and idled his fingers up the outside of her leg. The lightness of his touch was less of his previous comforts and more of the old teasing that she had once known under his hands. If it had been anyone else, Riza would have been more self-conscious of the fact that she had turned far enough for him to see her breasts, the heat of her flesh as he simply _considered_ the possibilities of her body with his hand. 

“Didn’t you?” he asked, body leaning against her thigh as he raised his chin, and leveled his gaze just above her chest. “I seem to recall that you liked it when I—” 

Riza leaned down, lips bruising against his as she kissed him, cutting Roy’s words short. She reached for the front of his shirt, fisting the fabric into her hands as she pulled him up and closer, mouth opening mid-kiss as she slid her tongue across the seam of his lips. Roy pushed himself up onto the couch, his weight on his hands as he leaned up to her, followed her movements hungrily. Sliding her leg over his hips, Riza wriggled back to lean against the back of the couch, and pulled Roy with her. He slipped his knee between her legs, as he kissed her again, first briefly, as he teased, and then with the same passion Riza had begun with. 

It was overwhelming enough that Riza felt herself reel from the electricity of his tongue skimming the roof of her mouth and the slight but delicate bite of her lips before they broke apart again, and their noses bumped while they breathed heavily. Tasting the air Roy breathed had been so far away from her for so long that Riza relished the way his chest moved as he panted, and began to kiss her again. Lips pressed to the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, and chin, and the curve of her ear before Riza tugged his collar once more, and Roy dutifully returned to her lips.

He was quick, burning his taste back into her memory before he smiled, and slipped away again, kissing the column of her throat, and then running both tongue and teeth gently over her collar, as he moved his hands against her robe, and slid one up over her waist, and then below her breast. 

When he cupped her in the palm of his hand and slowly brushed his thumb over the pink peak of her nipple, Riza swallowed. Roy settled onto the couch, and leaned against her, forehead to forehead. 

“Maybe a little,” she conceded, humming in appreciation as he stroked gently. “But we should be…” they should have been _something_ , but what, Riza couldn’t be bothered to think of.

Roy moved, as if he would kiss her, but instead hovered a mere fraction of an instant away from her lips, voice low and rich enough to wrap herself in. “I want you. I keep thinking that, I remember how kissing you feels, and I know I need to break the code, but I keep looking at you and thinking that I knew I l-“ Her mouth found his desperately again, and he swept his hands into her hair, before he continued to mumble, “I _needed_ you and,” Another kiss, tugging on his lip as she teased the words from his mouth. “I longed—“ Riza pushed herself into his hand, and sealed her mouth over his, moaning in appreciation as Roy pressed his hips against hers and rocked. “—Nearly three _years_ , and I still—“

The next grind of his hips caused Riza to gasp loudly enough that Roy let his train of thought scatter while she locked her legs around his hips, and held him there as she arched into him, back pressing into the cushions of the couch. Riza took a hold of his tie, tugging it firmly as she settled herself comfortably over his clothed erection, rocking in a way she knew her body had still remembered. 

There were too many clothes between him and her, but Roy had the good sense to shudder, and bring himself to rest in the curve between her neck and shoulder as he gathered himself. 

“I did miss your tongue,” Riza managed with a soft laugh, writhing as he pulled her down against the seat of the lounge, hands finding her hips and peeling away her robes. 

Roy appeared as if he wanted to say something clever, and for a moment, Riza believed he would, but instead, he stared admiringly at her small purple underthings that were low over her hips. There were very few words left that could convey the need in Roy’s eyes, and the fulfillment Riza felt when his head bowed to her chest as he pressed a series of kisses to her skin, so Riza said nothing. His hands reached for his belt, and his slacks were pushed away, but they both knew that they didn’t have protection on hand, and it was enough that she could feel him through fabric as he glided his hands over her sides and rocked his weight against hers. 

Riza ran her fingers through his hair, and tugged in response to more lips, more tongue, more of the slick wet of his mouth. Panting in his ear, Riza braced her feet against the seat, and rocked her hips up to meet his, pressing him tightly to her, nestling his erection heavily between her legs, where each roll of her hips had him rub against her clit. Roy’s tongue enveloped her breast gently as he slid against her, hands pulling down her underwear and pushing aside the wet cotton to feel her arousal under his hands. When he slid his fingers down over her, Riza whimpered, rocking against his hand. 

They were young, and they needed. Roy saw to her need first. 

He peeled her underwear away, and Riza lifted her hips for him, arching as fabric slid over her hips and thighs and down past her legs. It occurred to Riza that she could count very easily the number of times Roy had been with her like this, and yet despite the lack of practice they had, she felt pleased. Roy was no more practiced than he had been, but it was clear that imagination had exercised his theory, and Riza smiled as he pressed a reverent kiss to her knee. 

Everything was different, but some things never changed.

“You’re beautiful,” Roy said, nuzzling the inside of her leg as Riza slid her other foot forwards on the reclining couch. “May I…?” he asked not hesitant, but still careful. It was the very way he asked her, mouth quirked and chin propped on her knee that made Riza so comfortable. For better or for worse, Roy was a part of her life; and yet even still, he made sure his part was what she wanted. 

“Yes,” Riza said, stretching back over the cushions as Roy settled down on his forearms, hooking her leg over his shoulder. “I suppose a study break won’t hurt,” she added, breath hitching as Roy smiled into her thigh and slid his fingers over her folds. 

“Clears the mind,” Roy replied, stroking her clit before he turned his head, and replaced his fingers with his tongue.  He began to kiss her, lips smooth and soft against her skin, as he swept his hands over her thighs. Riza sighed in appreciation, ruffling her hands through his hair as she made herself comfortable. When he was focused, Roy knew what he was doing. The edges of his lips curled into a soft smile, and Riza canted her hips for him as he slowly opened his mouth, pulling his lips over her before he began to lick, once the length of her slit, before he hesitated over her clit just long enough to hear the shudder that followed.

The flat of his tongue pressed against her, firm and wet before he drew upwards, softer, lighter. When he moved down, his tongue dipped into her, slick and hot, and his nose slid against her, gentle and yet just _enough_. Riza couldn’t help the slight tug of his hair as he did so, sweet and methodical. When something worked, Roy tried it again, varied the pressure, tried something new - and it was so earnest that above all else, Riza found herself pleased that they still knew each other like this. 

And although Roy was neither perfect nor precise, his mouth was just as clever as the rest of him was, and Riza gasped when he curved his tongue, drawing away slightly as he did so, before tilting his chin and continuing on. His thumb swept over her hip in smooth circles as he drew his tongue up in shorter, firmer strokes, and Riza moaned in response. 

“— _There_ ,” she encouraged, tipping her head back as he lifted her by her hips, making soft noises of pleasure against her. Roy broke his rhythm long enough to moan, a steady vibration against her skin, before he continued, mouth wet. 

He really _had_ missed her. The thought floated easily through Riza’s mind as Roy skipped tentativeness and went straight for constancy; her body tensing as he brought her pleasure to a peak. He was wet and firm and so very coaxing that Riza couldn’t help the suddenness of her bliss under Roy’s ministrations. Her orgasm pulled her in, drawn out under Roy’s tongue until her hips slowed, and her breathing evened out again. 

Roy’s breath was warm and labored as he kissed the juncture of her legs, and let her hips go, drawing away only as he was certain Riza was relaxed enough to let him pull away. She slipped her leg away from his shoulder, and glanced down at him, flushed and licking glossy lips as he rolled his neck and pushed himself back up to his knees.

She didn’t have to look to know what he meant when he said rather stiffly, “I’m still not sure _I_ can concentrate.” 

Riza laughed, peeling herself off of the couch, as she scootched over towards him. She carefully slipped a knee between his legs and settled over his thigh, leaning in as he exhaled raggedly. There was something about the way his chest moved as he watched her that made Riza feel light, the way he didn’t smile, but his gaze never broke away from her face. Wisps of his black hair had begun to stick to his skin from sweat, and Riza raised a brow as she leaned forwards, and pulled the waistband of his underwear down over his hips, freeing his erection. 

“What was that about clearing the mind?” she asked, rocking over his thigh. 

“Hah _-aaah_ ,” Roy articulated as her hand slid firmly down over him, stroking at an even pace. There would be time, Riza supposed, for something other than just completion, but watching Roy’s eyes blacken, and his head tilt back as she worked her hand steadily over him was more than enough for the moment. He had been long gone some time ago, and now it was only a matter of finishing the job. Pressing forwards, Riza angled up just enough to catch his bottom lip between her teeth gently, coaxing Roy to kiss her, mouth still sweet. At this, Roy pulled her in by the waist, clasping her tightly as he kissed her deeply. There was a moment more, his tongue slipping into her mouth, and his hips snapping up under her hands; before she had him, steady and coming into her hand, breaking their kiss and groaning loudly enough that Riza felt her heart skip. 

She pressed a soft kiss to his temple, before she leaned in against his forehead, and considered the practicalities of what they had just done. Roy panted, his mouth bruised red, and his eyes still too dark to be really focused on anything other than her. Riza looked at her handiwork, the wreck of his clothes and his composure, and smiled. 

“I hope you have a handkerchief,” she informed him, gingerly holding up her hand. 

Roy snorted dryly, leaning his head back onto the back of the couch. “Pants pocket. A gentleman is never without.” 

At that, Riza peeled off of his lap and snickered, giving Roy a firm look. “Gentleman indeed,” she said, bending down to reach for the white cotton square to wipe herself, and then him, off with. “You should probably go into town, later.” she added, grabbing her robe to pull back on before she leaned in to his side, letting Roy rest his arm over her shoulder. 

“Oh?” he managed, a hint of a smile crossing his features before it slipped away, under the trained schooling of his expression. Riza licked her lips, searching for the right response. It hurt, to see him not _want_ to expect anything, but she knew that she had set a record for having to stop his expectations. They had been this comfortable before, this intimate, but now…Roy was guarding something, and it was from her.

She couldn’t say it didn’t hurt, but then she also knew she needed him still. Having part of Roy, even briefly, was better than not having him at all. 

 If only the circumstances were different.

“We can’t just…have _children_ like this.” Never mind the goals, there were still practicalities to think of. Next time, if he got distracted, if they needed each other again, if she _wanted_ him as much as she did now, they would need protection. It was as simple as that. 

The funny expression on Roy’s face, however, seemed to speak to something otherwise. “You think about that? I mean, having children, not… _not_ having them,” he added lamely, tracing a line down her shoulder. 

Riza shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter, but—“ she paused, struggling to word herself. “I suppose I do think about children. If you never were a child, you can romanticize it a bit, can’t you? What it would be like to know someone who doesn’t know what the world is really like. To protect that.” 

For the first time, Roy’s face genuinely fell, and he looked as if he might wrap her closer to him. Instead, he chose to whisper to her softly, “ _Riza_ ,” 

She shook her head. “You know what I mean. I know you were young when you lost your parents, but it changed us, didn’t it? I worried about studying, not playing. And you grew up in a bar. Neither of us know the first thing about children or even families.” 

For a moment, Roy opened his mouth, before closing it again. He pulled back to look at her carefully. “Where is this coming from?”

“I had a lot of time to think, while you were gone,” Riza said. The truth was, that after her graduation, she had spent the majority of her time caring for her father, and fantasies - absurd as they were - gave her some level of assurance. Her choices were the right ones, the alternate paths held appeal, but wouldn’t lead her away from her current life.

 “I saw the way my father looked at me. He wanted my mother back, and I could never replace that. I started to resent him, I’ve spent so long _understanding_ , because I missed my mother too, but,” she wiggled her lip between her teeth, and sighed. 

“There’s a line, isn’t there? Your parents should love you, not resent what you remind them of. I wondered about that, I suppose. What it would mean to…to learn what children are like, what parents _should_ be.” But whether she said it directly or not, there would be no children, no babes of soldiers, certainly not the ones that would have black hair not at all like hers. They were too young. Confirming it out loud felt final. It felt freeing, to cut away the ties from her heart to impractical ideas. 

“I thought it about, certainly. To fix what was done, to prove there was a better way. But the way everything else is, the world being so dark and dangerous, I couldn’t do that.” 

Roy nodded, letting her curl against his chest as she saw fit, making herself comfortable. Riza felt him swallow, the movement of his throat above her and the warm thump of his heart beating in his chest. 

“The world won’t always be like that, you know,” he said finally, stroking her hair as she sighed. 

“I know. I believe in that dream of yours, Roy Mustang. If the world was a little less terrible, then…” she fell short, burying her face into his chest. There was nothing more she could say. The world might become a little less terrible, but she knew it might come at the expense of their own lives. If she joined his side, there would certainly be no way to follow the more traditional paths of security, of family, or nation. And yet, she had to say, it was not that she ached from loss — Riza felt bereft of the choices she was discarding. 

When he finally spoke, Roy’s words were soft and affectionate. “I’ll go into town later today. And if you _wanted_ to, when the world is a little less terrible, we could talk about it.”

 It did not matter that Riza was not sure she would see that day, or even that she would want it when it came. The words comforted regardless. 

She tilted her her head and nodded against his chest. “That’s amenable for a _distant_ future. Although for _now_ , you should worry more about getting back to work,” Riza said, lips twisting into a wry grin. “Seeing as how your distraction was taken care of.” 

“Back to work? Like _this?”_ Roy protested, wriggling against her chaise lounge. 

“No,” Riza scoffed. “With your pants still off. Of course not like _that_ ,” she said, peeling away from him to raise a brow at his helpless flopping over the cushions. “Get dressed, you,” Riza ordered, pushing him towards the end of the couch. 

“Alright, alright,” Roy said, throwing up his hands before she managed to nudge him over the edge. “Back to work it is,” And then, under his breath, Roy added, “— _bossy_.”

At this, Riza picked up his pants and tossed them at his chest. “On second thought, I won’t ever need children if I have to deal with _you_.”

“I’m _considerably_ more fun to deal with than babies,” Roy shot back, pulling up shorts and slacks. 

“You’d better _considerably_ get back to work,” Riza replied with a smile, before she stretched back out over the couch, and waited for him to return to the task at hand. 


	4. Chapter 4

The first day of recording the notes of her tattoo had ended with Riza drifting into a dreamless sleep on the chaise lounge, napping while Roy worked well into part of the night. She had woken up curled on his chest back in her bed, Roy having apparently gone to the effort of carrying her from the library to her bedroom. He had been strong before, but Riza couldn’t say that a sleeping dead weight was the easiest thing to carry and she found herself both amused and impressed he had even attempted it. 

Then again, knowing Roy, it wasn’t so surprising. 

On the second day, Roy had peeled himself out of her bed and showered sleepily, before he followed her back to the library and began working. It wasn’t until before lunch that he left for town, bringing back needed supplies and groceries to make cold cut sandwiches with. They had spoken very little on the previous three years and secretly Riza was grateful. The less she knew of it, the more she felt like time had not really passed at all. Not while he had been away. 

By dinner time Roy had again grown restless, shifting anxiously behind her until he finally sighed and set down his notebooks, disturbing a pile of loose pages he had been collecting.

“I think I’m done for now. I’m not getting further into decoding this until I’ve eaten,” he said, standing up and dusting off his pants.

Riza turned, pulling back up her robe over her shoulders. “You’ll get it eventually,” she assured him. 

“ _Eventually_ is the problem. I keep thinking I should be getting the references faster than this, and the early Xerxians had a sun god, so it’s not as if a mythological code should be impossible to guess…” he rolled his neck and offered his hand to her, helping her up from her spot on the couch until she stood beside him, peering over his notes.

“You started doodling.” Riza said dryly, pointing to one of his haphazard sketches. Upon a second inspection, one of the sketches appeared to be her. Not just her tattoo, but a very geometric map of her body, mostly of circles and squares but blended into the appearance of her figure. Roy was not a particularly talented artist, but he understood sketching geometric shapes, and had apparently tried experimenting. 

He shrugged. “I needed to think.” 

“By drawing me?” 

“By loosening up my hand. Although, if I wanted to carve a statue of you, it might turn out better,” Roy said, smiling down at her as he tilted his head. “Just, for the record. Alchemy means as long as I can envision it, I can form the shape.” 

“What would I need a statue of myself for?” Riza asked, brushing past him as she headed for the stairwell and towards the kitchen. Roy followed dutifully, shrugging as he began to descend the steps after her. 

“Whatever you’d like, I suppose. At any rate, you should let me make dinner.” 

Riza hesitated. “You made dinner last night.” 

“I know,” Roy answered, leaning against the kitchen door to push it open. “But it’s helpful to do something with my hands that isn’t writing for awhile,” he paused, letting Riza sweep past him and settle herself in the kitchen.

Riza hopped up onto the island counter in the center of the kitchen, feet swinging for a moment before she gave him a wry look. “Are you saying you need to be put to work, Mustang?” she asked, leaning on her palm as she watched him pull out a large pot from the cabinets. 

For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her, but Roy took the pot to her sink and ran the water, letting it fill for a few moments before he finally responded. “I was thinking of making pasta. Noodles, since that’s what I bought in town, with a white sauce,” he turned the tap off before taking the pot to the stove, and turned on the gas fire. Roy slid the pot over the burners and looked back at Riza.

She quirked a brow. “Was that supposed to be a come on?” If it was, he was being awfully casual about it, although Riza couldn’t say Roy was exactly known for the best sense of humor around. He was clever, certainly, and funny, although not usually at the same time. It couldn’t be helped. 

“It wasn’t. I like Alfredo sauce,” he answered, swinging around the corner of the island counter, before he leaned his palms on either side of her hips. “But I was thinking, how long do you suppose a pot of water takes to boil?” 

“Maybe ten minutes, give or take. Why?” Riza asked, feeling bemused by Roy’s mischievous expression. 

“Then I have ten minutes to work with here,” Roy said, leaning in, with a keen grin. 

“Maybe ten minutes is good for _you_ ,” Riza snorted, wrapping her hand over the back of his neck as he pressed against the counter, settling himself between her legs. “But for me…”

Roy laughed, something warm and rich that made Riza shiver. He reached out, settling his hand in the dip of her waist, smoothing his hand over the the thin fabric of her robe. “I can’t tell,” Roy remarked, brushing his lips against hers briefly before he murmured, “—if you’re teasing me or if you’re informing me,” he wound his hands over the ties of her robe, and smiled, “—but I think just this part can suffice.” 

It was then that he stopped, and Riza realized she had wound her leg over his hips and began to focus on the  lushness of his lips instead of the words that were coming out of them. If she had the thought to be sheepish, it didn’t register before Roy had begun kissing her again, soft and leisurely. Before, he had an insistency to his mouth, but this time he was languid, teasing out the kiss until she leaned into it wanting just a little more. Roy opened his mouth first and it was Riza who moved, tongue flitting over the roof of his mouth gently. She smiled briefly against his mouth, teeth clicking against his before she wrapped her other arm around his neck and relaxed against his shoulders. 

Roy seemed pleased to let her take command of his mouth, keeping him at her whim. The thought made Riza feel like laughing giddily as he deepened the kiss again following her move. Instead, she slipped her hands forwards over his collar and began to unbutton his shirt, sliding her hands under the cotton and against his collarbone. All things considered she had spent quiet a fair amount of time being topless for him for three days, and he had a remarkable amount of catching up to do.

The principle of equivalent exchange seemed to cross Roy’s mind, and he helped her, slipping buttons from holes until his shirt fell away from his chest. Without missing a beat, Riza peeled the shirt away from his shoulders, and slipped it over his arms before the fabric fell to the floor. Roy hummed as she pulled away, spit shining on his lips as he watched her with dark eyes as she kissed his jaw, then his throat. When she moved next, she found herself bowing her head to his chest, pressing a kiss to the warm stretch of skin below his collarbone. Roy’s breathing sounded shallow but his face remained calm as he waited for her next move, as if both uncertain of what she would do next and anticipating it all the same. Riza slid her hands over his sides, dragging her fingers lightly over his back before she massaged him gently where her nails had scraped against skin. 

It hadn’t been intentional and yet interestingly enough, the sensation had caused Roy to shiver under her touch. She looked back up at him and then carefully repeated the movement, this time with more pressure. She knew well enough that it wouldn’t break his skin, and yet the sensation was strong enough that Roy bit his lip in order to bite off a whine. 

 _Interesting_.

Riza dug her fingers into his back, pushing him forwards against her hips and kissed the crook of his neck. There had been times before when _he_ had kissed her neck or shoulders, but it had always been with the utmost gentleness. Still, she could be soft and hard at the same time and Riza parted her lips and gently dragged her teeth over the line of his shoulders. The sound that she elicited from the back of Roy’s throat struck deep under her skin and made her stomach clench. His head tipped back exposing his throat, and Riza’s fingers wound into his hair at the base of his skull, massaging firmly. For a moment, Riza simply enjoyed the ragged inhales and exhales that shook between Roy’s lips and the way he strained to meet her touch. It was overwhelming - thrilling, even - and she wondered if she had ever seen him so needy. 

Roy was many things, but he had never been a beggar.

After another hard kiss to his collarbone, Riza looked up and studied his expression. His hair was always a mess, and Riza paid no more special attention to its rucked up unruliness than she normally did. It was his eyes that merited the attention, a pitch black color that had grown so deep that it reminded her of new moon skies. For a boy who wanted nothing more than fire, the comparison of the moon seemed very fitting - his skin was flushed but still a light, glowing color that reminded Riza of porcelain dishes and summer nights, and he seemed almost dark, almost soft, but not quite. His chest rose and fell with such measured strain that she couldn’t quite bring herself to look away; for all that Roy was hard edges and angles, he was also living flesh and bone and that came with a certain suppleness that couldn’t be ignored. 

Leaning forwards Riza pressed a soft kiss to his chest, smiling as she felt Roy inhale deeply as she unwound her fingers from his hair. The tension in his muscles made him feel like he had been carved from stone, but the brief shudders that passed his lips were more than enough liveliness for Riza to remember that he was anything but. A tentative hand came up to brush back her hair as she kissed him again lower on his ribs, open mouthed and firm. She caught him off guard with a swift swipe of her tongue over his side, running her mouth over a small scar that had stuck close to his belly. It was curious to see, though Riza didn’t hesitate over the softly faded pink skin, she knew it was something that hadn’t been there before. On closer inspection, Roy had collected a variety of small imperfections that she didn’t recall - nicks in his skin and spots where it had been healed over. Nothing was particularly out of the ordinary until she pressed her forehead against his abdomen and glanced down at the sharp line of his hips. 

“You have a bruise.” Riza said, frowning as she feathered a light touch over the soft purple-blue spot.

“Mmnn,” Roy grunted, squirming as she pulled the skin around his bruising. “—ran into your bedpost last night. That _hurts_ you know.” 

Riza looked up, retracting her hand as she settled her chin against his chest. “Did you get that while carrying me?” 

He looked slightly embarrassed. “Sort of. I put you down because you were asleep, and then went to the bathroom.” 

The facts didn’t quite add up, and Riza dipped her head again to kiss beside the bruise, hitting the mark just above his waistband. Roy’s body tensed, and she hesitated. “Is that all? The future flame alchemist can’t even turn on a light?”

“I didn’t want to wake you up. I wasn’t— I was taking care of things, if you must know,” he defended, stopping short as she hooked her fingers over the waistband of his slacks and pulled, pressing another kiss to the softer exposed skin of his lower belly. 

Riza hummed a laugh against his skin, and Roy moaned quietly, a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. 

“I see,” she said. “I could help you with that, you know.” 

This caused Roy to bite his lip, and he raised a brow at Riza before she pulled away. They both froze, listening to the soft hiss and burble from behind her.

“That’s the water boiling, isn’t it?” she asked, trying not to laugh.

“It is,” Roy groaned, this time in disappointment. 

“How long do you think…?” Riza said. 

Roy gave her a vaguely solemn expression as he gingerly extracted himself from her grip, and slipped his hand under her knee, moving her leg away from his hips. “Long enough,” he said. 

Riza smiled at the deep set pout that crossed his features for a moment, and then nudged him gently in the thigh with her foot. “Finish making dinner. We can talk more after…” 

“I suppose dinner would make things easier,” Roy said with a sigh, before Riza finally laughed. She watched carefully as he began to pour pasta into the pot of boiling water. The noodles slipped stiffly into their hot bath, and steam rose up to halo around Roy’s face. 

They fell into an even silence as the gas stove hissed while Roy prepared their dinners quickly, but not without care or attention. Riza couldn’t say if his dedication was due to his desire to get it over with, or if it was because it was keeping his focus off of the other matters at hand. Either way, it didn’t take him long to finish. The cheese melted richly, and when the noodles were done, Roy poured the sauce over them, and served two full dishes. 

When he offered up Riza’s plate she took it gratefully and slid down from the island countertop. They ate in relative peace, Roy often looking over at her with another expression that kept Riza on her toes. It was so strange to feel his presence beside her, the quiet return to Roy being just out of her hand’s reach. Stranger still was the fact that even during the few moments he had gone without touching her made her feel suddenly bereft of him. The realization that they were both waiting in anticipation caught up with Riza, and she found herself glancing back as she finished her meal, swallowing back lemon water. She held his gaze longer, lingered a little more. When his arm brushed against hers to reach for the salt she felt the sudden rush of need flare back in the spaces where their skin didn’t touch. It felt nearly criminal to not be against him for the rest of the meal. 

It was hard to say how they ended up finishing dinner without finding themselves wrapped in each other, harder still to say how they’d ended up stumbling back to her room, fistfuls of her robe in his hands, and his belt under her fingers. Riza wondered briefly if they were going about it the wrong way, if they should have been slower or more gentle with each other, but Roy kissed her with a new fervor that made her toes curl and her heart rate spike. Before, when he had been younger, he had felt calmer. Now, Roy was a wildfire in his own right and Riza couldn’t say she didn’t understand. 

When his belt hit the floor with a solid thump, Riza pushed Roy into her bed, and they collapsed into each other, limbs tangling and breath catching as they found each others’ lips. Riza felt dizzy, although whether it was from need or from the way she had gasped as Roy’s lips fell to her throat and then her chest, she couldn’t say. 

They were tense - nervous and anxious. Riza felt her chest tighten as Roy wrapped his arms around her, before kissing her on her brow. His lips trembled against her skin, hands drawing up uselessly at her sides until Riza reached for his palms and stroked his fingers gently. Uncertainty wrapped around them and Riza laughed as they rolled on the bed, Roy fumbling to balance his weight on either side of her as he caught himself. He gave her a vaguely hurt look before she leaned up and caught his lips against hers, hand stroking his cheek as she eased him back to her. 

When he began to relax under her tongue, Riza took the opportunity to let her hands roam over her body. She peeled away her underwear from beneath him, cotton sliding down her thighs. The next of Roy’s kisses were more frantic, and Riza shivered from his mouth and her own touch. Roy didn’t notice her hands moving until Riza moaned into his mouth, panting from the firm rubbing of her clit. 

He stopped, pausing to watch her chest rise and fall as she continued, before he looked up at her, eyes questioning.

“You could help,” Riza breathed, face hot as he watched her. “Although it’s not like I haven’t gotten used you not actually being there.” 

For a moment, Roy struggled for the right words before the tremor left his expression, and he began to kiss her again. His hand slipped over hers, gently skimming his fingers over her body. It was too fast, then too slow, and when he began to stroke against her own rhythm, Riza squirmed, stopping her movements as Roy took over. He broke their kiss briefly, managing only, “I got used to it too.” 

When she tried to laugh her voice came out in a soft whine, breathy and far too high for her normal liking. Roy looked back at her and smiled, a genuine grin that was neither arrogant nor wholly confidant. Instead, he looked rather unsure, as if he was looking for something like an affirmation in her eyes. Riza’s breath hitched.

“This is better, though,” she said softly, stroking his jaw before she nodded back at the nightstand. Pressing her hand to Roy’s shoulder, she eased him away from her until he knelt back on his knees. He rocked back, silent. Riza slipped away from his grasp, wiggling until she found the box he had purchased earlier - as surreptitiously as was possible in a smaller town. For his part, Roy was watching her calmly, shifting to meet her when she turned back to him. She was quick about divesting him of his slacks, peeling away the shorts he wore underneath as Roy exhaled gratefully. Tilting her head, Riza stroked him firmly before she rolled the condom over his erection, and leaned up to kiss his cheek. 

“Are you sure?” Roy asked, hands moving to her hips as Riza settled back onto her pillows. 

She nodded. “I want you. _Please_ —,” Riza said, not sure how to end her request. She looked back up at Roy’s eyes, feeling as if she had crossed some boundary they’d been keeping, albeit tenuously. And yet, it was so difficult to still feel alone when he was right there, and she could reach out for him.

This time the smile reached his eyes more than anything else, and Roy pressed brief kisses to her skin, her ribs, her breasts; before he slid his hand over hers and locked their fingers, guiding himself into her with his other hand. Riza bit her lip, willing herself not to wince as Roy eased himself slowly down. It wasn’t new, but it had been so long she had forgotten knowing him. He leaned, pressing his weight onto his elbows before he rested his forehead against hers quietly. 

Riza’s eyes fluttered closed, and she stroked the back of Roy’s palm, adjusting her breathing to match his as they reacquainted themselves to each other’s bodies. A fraction of space lay between them. Roy inhaled, and Riza felt his chest move against hers. When she opened her eyes again, he was watching her curiously, swallowing as she studied him. Riza smiled and squeezed his hand before she rocked into him, hips rolling under his body as she moved. He was no longer out of reach. As simple as that, she felt the sudden balance tip back into her body. They were covalency, he was _stable._

Whatever his reasons were, she didn’t complain as he squeezed her hand back and met her steady, even rhythm. It seemed that clasping her hand was doing something for him, and Riza let Roy link himself inextricably as much as he could. A breath here and a moment there would move them apart until they wound closer together, tighter in each revolution. She pulled her other hand up over his back, digging her hands into his shoulders as she brought him in. When he thrust again, she leaned up hungrily for a kiss, tongue sliding against his lips before he cracked a smile and opened his mouth to her. 

It was nothing like she remembered, and yet Riza was not disappointed. Roy was heavy, but Riza pulled him down against her again, and again, solid and strong against her. She ran her tongue over the roof of his mouth, and then gasped when he rolled his hips, grinding against her. Roy pressed scattered kisses to her lips, chin, cheek, and then her ear; he whispered her name as she moaned and Riza wondered if he was testing the familiarity of the word on his lips again. 

When she felt herself cracking, Riza arched into him, pulling her hand around his neck as she squeezed his palm, and breathed, “ _Roy—,”_ before she choked back a searing gasp as her body shook. There wasn’t enough, the hot flare in her body made her tense and Riza panted, voice vibrating with need. She felt electric as he thrust again and again before burying his face into the crook of her neck, groan low and vibrating against her skin before they both finally slowed, bodies shaking and breathing erratic. 

For reasons she couldn’t name, Riza was intensely glad when Roy collapsed onto her, chest heavy and weight almost unbearable. She idly stroked the back of his head before she sighed softly against his hair. The warm exhale he pressed to her ear had her shiver. They laid end to end, still tangled until finally, slowly, Roy pulled away. When he finally moved, Roy tossed the rubber in her trash before he settled back down to Riza’s side.

It took a few moments to notice that his hand had finally left hers, and when Riza blinked, her eyes felt hot. Realizing why, she moved to bury her face in her pillow and out of sight. 

She was a moment too late.

“Riza?” Roy asked, voice tinged with panic as he looked down at her. “Are you alright, did I—did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” she replied, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. You’re fine, I just…” her hands went to her face, brushing away wet streaks. If Roy hadn’t looked so distressed, she might have laughed at herself. As it stood, she hiccuped softly, trying to think of a way to explain why it had hurt when his hands left hers.  

“What’s wrong?” he pressed again, this time a little more desperately, hands hovering at her shoulder as if uncertain if he should touch her again.

Shuddering quietly, Riza slipped herself closer to his chest, leaning under his chin so that he didn’t have to watch as she cried. If she moved first he would know to touch her again, the unspoken plea and permission to be held close. Roy quietly brought his hands around her waist, worry still lining his brow. He was struggling to understand, but afraid to let go, and Riza felt safe. There was no world where Roy Mustang would lose her completely, she had to remind herself.

She smoothed her hand over his neck, bringing her fingers up against his collarbone, and pressed her nose to his skin, taking in the soothing heat of his body.  

 “Nothing, I just-“ she paused, breathing in deeply in the hopes of sounding less watery. “I was alone. I missed you.”

“I’m here now.” Roy said quietly, and Riza sobbed into his shoulder as he held her close.


	5. Chapter 5

When Riza woke, a cursory glance told her that it was near five o’clock in the morning, and that her body should have been willing to let her sleep later. But she was half buried in Roy’s arms, and knowing that she was awake stole away the comfort of her position. She was being impractical, Riza reasoned. They’d lost any time after dinner, and Riza couldn’t bear to think he had lost important research time because of her. It felt like using his kindness to be so easily wrapped up next to him, arms pressed against his chest and legs tangled underneath his, as if he’d tried to cover as much of her as possible. Covering her from what Riza couldn’t say, but she certainly felt the guilt of his furrowed brow and worried expressions from the night before. She had never meant to make him feel responsible, and yet it seemed that Roy simply took pain in stride, swallowed it whole and pretended it tasted of nothing unusual. 

Extracting herself then, felt like the only way to bring back some semblance of balance. His arms had found the crook of her waist, the sweep of her shoulders where her tattoo lay and he had given her very little room to move. Even in sleep he looked upset and Riza peeled his hands away gently, hesitating before she decided against trying to kiss the frown that had settled into his expression. It was altogether better not to disturb him if she was up that early.

She slipped away, shivering at the early morning cold on bare skin before she briefly looked back as Roy shifted in her bedsheets, adjusting. Riza opened her armoire carefully, pulling out a black wool skirt, cardigan, and a flimsy camisole that she took to her bathroom in silence. Her shower was short and efficient, but her legs felt weak, and briefly, Riza thought to chalk it up to a slight ache. 

Perhaps it had been a bad idea to re-entangle herself.

But it was done, and all things said it had been her bad idea and the only thing left to do was fix her errors. When she turned off the water she toweled off quickly, dressed herself, and then quietly left her bedroom to head to the library. 

The mess that lay there in the room was daunting, but Riza knew what she was looking for among the stacks of books. She also knew she wasn’t going to find it in Roy’s mess on the library floor, but instead tucked away on a shelf. There had been a few books that had resurfaced in Riza’s memories as potentially important - a collection of books on mythology and history - things that seemed just shy of out of place in her father’s library. Riza could remember a black leather bound tome with gold edged pages that proclaimed the complete mythos of Xerxes, along with its companion, a guide in brown that explained the etymology of Xerxian words from mythological sources. They had been favorites of Riza’s when she was younger, although as she had aged her interests had been drawn further away to political history, not fairy tales.

The far reaches of the library remained chilled, and Riza pulled her cardigan tightly against herself as she drew the curtains, exposing the room to weak stirrings of sunlight and morning darkness. It didn’t take long to search out the right shelf in the room; everything had been organized according to a rather reliable system of subjects and dates, and Riza found herself hidden behind towering bookshelves in order to pull out her books.

A covering of dust stuck to her fingers as she removed the codices from their shelving places. Cracking open the larger book’s cover, Riza winced as she heard the binding strain, and began to flip through the beginning pages. The introduction was dry but concise, and Riza skimmed through it before she settled down on the small rug in the corner of the library and began to really read.

Every culture had a beginning myth, and Riza intended to reacquaint herself with the ones that lay in her books. They began with the sun and stars, a vortex in the sky and then light over darkness. The variations changed over time, but they weren’t so hard to understand, or even all that different from each other. First there was the Being, the Goddess, and then she gave birth to light, to the sun; she formed her lover from nothingness, and they created the vastness of the universe together. The earth was formed, man was made - often crafted by the gods from clay, and then fired into life. 

Strangely, other religions spoke of man being made first, but for the Xerxians, it was always the goddess who birthed the potential of the creation of a universe. The stories continued, changing over time, varying names and ideas, and even influencing the more ancient reaches of Amestrian societies. The sun god took precedence as the Xerxian society reached its height, mankind stole fire from the gods, keeping light to themselves. 

Hours past as Riza sat on the floor nose deep in her books. Tales ran through her mind as she tried to work out the all the references, the cadences, numbers, the implications to early alchemic formulas, and the metaphors deep within ancient texts whose societies were long gone. 

She didn’t realize she had rubbing at her temples until a shadow was cast over her books that caused her to squint and blink. When she looked up she saw Roy standing over her. Jarred with residual sleepiness, Riza searched for the right thing to say as he gave her a questioning look. 

“Head start,” she said quietly, lifting up the extra book at her side for him to look at. 

Without a word, Roy sat down beside her, expression blank as he settled in and reached for the book. He glanced over the title, and then calmly said, “You’re up early.” 

“I woke up.” There wasn’t much else to say besides that. Riza licked her lips, and distantly realized she was starting to get hungry, but hadn’t the thought to move for food since she’d sat down. Even then, she wasn’t sure she wanted to get up. 

Roy’s voice was deceptively calm as he spoke. “I was concerned. You weren’t in the bedroom or the bathroom, and after last night…” he let the words hang in the air for a moment, passing her a meaningful look. 

“I’m _fine_.” Riza said flatly. “We’re behind, you know. We wasted last night—“

“—We didn’t _waste_ anything. I spent time with you. Riza you seem…” he fell quiet, folding his hands over his lap for a moment. Riza said nothing, hoping the subject would be dropped, or at the very least chalked up to her hard working attitude. She was a scholar, of course she would get down to the more interpretive research. 

“I’m trying to do the right thing. I don’t want you to feel like this.” Roy pressed, and Riza’s brow furrowed. She frowned, eyes trained on the text before her. 

“Feel like what, exactly?” Riza dared. 

As soon as she did, she began to regret it, as Roy’s expression softened and he gave her a look that she imagined only looked sad simply because she knew Roy that well. He bowed his head, and spoke. “You seem lonely. Lost, a little. Listen, I know, I understand my idea of family is a little…unconventional,” he said carefully, glancing at her. “—But I know what feeling all alone is like. I remember how terrible it felt, before my Aunt was found and took me in.” 

Riza sighed quietly. She’d heard the story before; there’d been a time years ago when she’d asked why Roy didn’t live with his parents. There’d been a terrible accident, and Roy’s parents had died when he was still very young. His mother had been from Xing, and all of her family would have been impossible to find, and as a young Amestrian boy of sound health and potential, the state had tried to keep Roy in the country. They’d found his father’s only surviving relative - Chris Mustang - and Roy had been taken in by her. That had been before she’d ever met Roy, by quite some time. In all fairness Roy had been an orphan much longer, and yet because of that, Riza suspected that maybe he understood it all a little less. 

“You were lucky,” Riza said simply. 

Roy nodded. “I was. But hear me out: suppose you’re not really all alone either. Not at all,” he bit his lip, chewing it anxiously for a moment. “I was thinking, suppose you have someone like that, someone to be with you. You and I, you know, we could be _together_ ,” he said, voice gaining in uncertainty the further on he went. “The two of us can count for something. I could make sure you’re okay, that you always have someone.” 

Riza’s head snapped up, and she glanced over at him. A thick lump settled in her throat, and she drew her legs up to her chest. 

“If we just,” Roy began before he caught Riza’s fierce glare, stopping short of saying anything more.

“Don’t.” Riza said flatly, voice hard. “Don’t you _dare_ propose to me, Roy Mustang,” her voice trembled from the severity of her words, but she watched as the words sunk in. There, again, she had Roy’s honest expression, the calmness failing him and the edges of his true feelings bubbling to the surface in his eyes. 

Perhaps he would understand, Riza thought, how much he was hurting her by asking. 

“ _That_ ,” he said, trying to distance himself from the word itself, like the mere entertainment of the idea would set him on fire, “-is _not_ what I was going to suggest. But what would be so objectionable to you even if I did? Why is that the worst suggestion I could make, here?”  

When she closed her eyes, she could hear the desperate tone under his voice, and Riza breathed in, trying to will away the sudden, furious anger eating at her. He had to have remembered. There was no forgetting the fact that she had watched her own roommate’s engagement fall apart after her fiancé died. If he was playing stupid with her, it was upsetting, and if he was serious, then it was only offensive. 

“You know _why_ ,” Riza answered, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “And this is just sex, Roy, it’s not—“ she sucked in a breath, realizing what had just said. This time, she couldn’t bear to confront Roy’s expression falling, and yet she found herself watching as he recoiled anyways, as if she’d reached out and slapped him hard. 

She might as well have. 

“I’m sorry, that’s— that’s not what I meant at all. I didn’t mean,” Riza struggled, reaching out a hand to touch his cheek before deciding against it.

“No,” he said deadly sobered, the traces of nervousness and even what she belatedly recognized as excitement gone from his voice. “Apparently it’s what you’re telling yourself, though.”

“ _Roy_ ,” Riza said, wincing as her voice came out more distressed than it had been, high and cracking. Her cheeks felt hot again, and she bit back a tremble in her lips. 

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said, gazing at the floor. 

“I didn’t—“ Riza protested, blinking blearily. Exhaustion swept through her body, as if she hadn’t slept in days, instead of only waking up early that morning. She breathed in heavily, chest shaking. 

“I never intended to let you think for even a second that I was just, just _using_ you for _that,_ or even that that was all it was for me. Maybe I went about it wrong by pursuing you while I was still learning from your father, but we were friends and so I thought,” Roy sighed deeply, pushing his hair back with his hands. “I was wrong.” But about what, he didn’t say. Roy continued on, and Riza felt her breathing waver, the room felt off-kilter, as if he’d knocked it askew. She gave him a pleading look, biting her lip as he watched her carefully. 

“I don’t care what you did, after. It doesn’t matter so much to me, if you were able to be with someone else like that. Maybe there wasn’t enough time for me to get over it. Maybe Hughes was right, and I really just can’t get my head out of my ass. I don’t know.” Roy set her book down, and slipped the other tome away from Riza’s lap as she shuddered. “But I care about you, I cared that it _was_ you. It was so unfair, you get to make me into a man, and into the Flame Alchemist, and into a better soldier, and I can’t seem to give you anything back.” 

“You,” Riza began to protest, before Roy shook his head. 

“Look at the facts. I need you more than you need me. I certainly owe you more. That’s okay. But I want you to be safe, to have someone, to be cared for and lo- _look_ , it doesn’t have to be me. You don’t need to spend your life with me for that to happen. I just want you to _have_ all that.” he exhaled slowly, as if trying to unwind the tension in his body, the strain in his shoulders.

Roy fell silent for a moment before he added, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to make things feel worse. I overstepped.”

“No, Roy, I— I overreacted. This has all been so fast,” she rubbed her temple gently, working away the headache there. Roy reached out, grabbing her hand and gently guided her towards him, pulling her against his shoulder and back into his arms. 

“I know.” Leaning against her in turn, he rubbed her shoulders, which felt cold even under the layer of fabric between them. Riza shivered, and slacked, falling against him. 

“I thought it would be easier because I was expecting it,” she said quietly, glancing at the books he had moved aside. 

“I’m sorry,” Roy replied quietly, squeezing her gently in assurance. 

“I kissed you first.” Riza said, when the word _pursued_ came into her mind’s eye again.

“So you did,” he said, and she could hear the softening of his voice. 

“I will miss you terribly when you leave,” she added, resting her head against his collar. Roy’s chest moved in and out with an even keel, and she closed her eyes, listening to the vibrations of his voice. 

“Leaving’s not the same as dying,” he answered, leaning to press a kiss to the crown of her head.

 Riza breathed in deeply, and when she realized he had settled there, chin resting on her head, she spoke. “Xerxes had pyre burials you know. If a woman’s husband died, and he was placed on a funeral pyre, she might join him.”

“Join him? While alive?” 

“If she chose to join him, I doubt she really thought of herself as alive at that moment.” Riza replied, biting her lower lip. “It’s where the saying ‘into the fire’ comes from. Where one goes, the other follows. I was reminded of it when I was looking at mythological etymology earlier.” 

“You _are_ giving me flame alchemy, I suppose. But we don’t have to be married to be together.” 

“No,” Riza said. “We don’t.”

She fell silent then, watching as Roy wrapped his arms under her knees and pulled her legs over his lap, letting her fall closer to him. 

“I won’t die on you.” 

“You can’t promise that.” Licking her lips, she avoided his gaze, hand covering the back of his collar where she lay her fingers to rest at the base of his skull. 

“I wouldn’t die without you, then,” he insisted, taking her other hand into his own. 

“It doesn’t work like that.” Riza said, the stubbornness in Roy’s voice drawing a worn smile to her lips. 

“You’ll have to take your objections to a higher power,” Roy said firmly. “-I think I’m more useful alive, I suppose. But if I did die, I wouldn’t mind dying to protect people. For you, even.”

Riza sighed, a frustrated _tch_ in the back of her throat. “Don’t be so stupid. You can’t die for me. I’d never forgive you.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t. Which is why I won’t die without you.” Roy reasoned, raising a brow as he pulled away slightly to look at her. Riza gave him a hard glare, rolling her eyes before she relented again, and leaned into his chest, listening to his heart beat beneath his ribs. 

“You’re ridiculous,” she said. But he was serious, and like everything Roy said, she felt the words and understood they were true, even if logic said he couldn’t possibly promise her such things. When he spoke of sunshine, Riza felt warm. It was as simple as that. 

Finally, softly, she added, “I believe you.” 

“Good,” Roy said roughly, allowing them both to tangle in each other just a little more in the library, limbs and feelings askew as they took shelter from the research before them.

 It was only a matter of time before they put themselves back aside and got to work. 


	6. Chapter 6

Sunlight spilled over her shoulders and fell over her face, bright and glaring even with her eyes closed. Riza rolled in her sleep, and pressed her face back into Roy’s chest, blocking out the light as best she could. When it became clear she couldn’t avoid it any longer, she sighed against his chest, and cracked one eye open. She was met with a fond black gaze, and the acute awareness of Roy’s hand at her bare waist. 

It occurred to Riza that she had never before been accustomed to sleeping naked, but that over the course of the week, it seemed to have become the general state of things. Roy threw off heat rather easily, and once they had removed their clothes there seemed to be little point in putting them back on. Besides the hard line of his hip pressed against her, Riza could feel the early morning tension in his skin and the drowsy warmth he produced. Roy was smiling, already awake and watching in amusement as Riza frowned at the sunlight pouring into her room. She huffed, blowing her bangs away from her eyes before she leaned forwards and rested her chin against his chest. 

“Not awake yet?” Roy asked, his voice a low rumble that Riza felt more than she heard. 

She shook her head. “No.”

Closing her eyes, she felt Roy lean forwards and kiss the crown of her head gently. A pang of guilt struck Riza and she realized rather belatedly that Roy was indulging in the quiet intimacy she had denied him the morning prior. He had wanted her to wake up in his arms, and if she was going to be honest with herself, she had wanted it too. She would have felt better had she simply stayed a little longer, and not acted like there was something to escape from. As much as she wanted it, permanency was terrifying. 

And yet being kissed good morning _wasn’t._

“Alright,” Roy replied, thumb moving in a slow circle across her waist. He fell into a fit of silence, and Riza bit her lip, half-asleep and half-thinking. That she had forgone this with him felt stupid, and the embarrassment of it had her leaning into him further, hand brought up to his side. She could feel Roy’s soft smile in her hair, and wondered briefly how long he had marveled at her being asleep. If it had been anything like the way she had looked at him - if his looking had felt any different, any more hurt because of her. 

After a long moment, Riza finally mumbled, “I didn’t mean it, yesterday.” 

His thumb stilled against her skin, and Roy swallowed. “I know you didn’t.” 

Afraid to look up at him, Riza simply nodded. He did know, and she had to believe that. Loss of something still caught itself in her throat, and Riza struggled with the right words, the thing that wouldn’t be another apology but that would make it _better_ , even if last night she had tended to the wounds as best she could. It was frightening to think, but his very presence had made her afraid to lose him again, even as he was right beside her. And even further, she worried she was using him to ease her pain while forgetting his own needs. It wouldn’t have been right, or fair to do so. 

“Covalent bonds aren’t meant to break, you know.” She said, voice still thick from sleep. 

“I know that too,” he replied, thumb moving again against her skin. For her comfort, or his, she wasn’t sure, but the soft massaging lulled her into a relaxed state. She exhaled softly, sliding her hand over his side as she pressed her palm to his back.

“You’re my extra electron.” Riza said, trying to infuse the words with pleasure, and need, and _wonder_ that he was. It was a late revelation, but he needed to hear it, and perhaps equally importantly, she needed to say it. If she understood her feelings better, she could have perhaps told him something that would have lifted the quietness from his body completely.  But none of the words she knew seemed to encapsulate how she felt, and returning to their old inside jokes seemed like the best bet to pass her meaning on. She cared. Deeply, frighteningly, overwhelmingly. 

“I’m yours,” he breathed quietly, and Riza pulled back to watch his expression, the exquisite honesty in his eyes as he spoke. “I think you’re mine.” 

Her hand fluttered to his jaw, fingers lingering at his cheek as she watched him breathe in and out slowly, as if on another edge he was waiting for her on. It strained him, she thought, to watch and to wait because they were both people of action. Riza smiled softly, lips curving gently upwards as she felt a coil of fear slip away from her. It was freeing. 

“You are,” she said, bringing her hand to cup his jaw as she leaned in, chest pressed to his. Roy pulled her in gently, and she watched as his smile rippled slowly from his lips to his eyes, lighting his face. Riza rested her forehead against his and his eyes fluttered closed, leaving nothing but the soft rhythm of his breathing. He slowed his breathing to match hers, and Riza swept her thumb over his cheek, lips a fraction away from his. When he exhaled, she tasted it, and his lips slid against hers, nose bumping her own. Riza kissed him gently, tender and sweet before she whispered, “I’m _glad_.” 

Roy said nothing in response, nuzzling his nose against hers before he returned her kiss, hand curving around her waist. Riza breathed in, mouth opening slightly as she made a soft noise in the back of her throat, and Roy took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. His tongue slipped past her teeth, and Riza felt a tingle of electricity run up her spine as he moved. Glad was not the right word for her to use, but words seemed to mean so little in the face of what his lips could convey for her. The feedback of the heat of his body sparking hers made Riza shiver;  when he breathed, she felt herself breathe, in and out, one and the same. She didn’t feel incomplete without him, but with Roy she felt _more_ , as if she had expanded beyond herself and into him. They bled into each other, lips pressed to each other and bodies blending easily. She felt him fall into her, and though she was certain she shouldn’t say it, it felt as if he had suddenly poured his emotions into her body, raw and inescapable. Coursing warmth flooded her, and relief soaked through her skin as he stroked her hair. 

“You’re beautiful,” he said, drawing his arm over her waist, nose pressed to her neck. Riza felt his soft exhale run over her skin as he nuzzled close. 

“And,” Riza teased gently, rolling to look at him, “—what else?” she dared, raising a blonde brow at him in a quirk of a smile. The tremble of Roy’s laugh vibrated from his ribs to her chest, and he ducked close to kiss her again. 

“Well I need to take a shower while you sleep in,” he mouthed against her ear, running fingers up her spine. “—And I wouldn’t want to say anything you might not be awake to hear,” Roy said, kissing the lobe of her ear before he pulled back to give her a lopsided grin. 

Riza frowned in response, trailing her fingers over his jaw. “Oh?” she said calmly. 

“Oh.” Roy sat up still grinning, her bed sheet crumpling to fall at his waist. “I need to shave and shower. I’ll be back,” he assured, scooting away from her. Riza turned to laugh into her pillow as he shook himself free of the sheets, exposing the bare length of his back. For a brief moment Roy stopped in his tracks, nearly posing and _definitely_ preening as she giggled behind him. He looked over his shoulder at her as she stifled another giggle, shifted on his feet, and winked. 

Laying back in the bed, Riza watched as Roy began to strut towards the bathroom, an exaggerated swagger in his steps. Snickering, Riza bit down on her sheets to keep back her laughter as he marched to her bathroom. It wasn’t until he disappeared from sight, passing through the door that she leaned up in her bed. A moment passed before she heard the strain of water rushing through the pipes and then the downpour of the shower, and Riza peeled away the blankets from her body as she leaned forwards to listen. 

At first she could only hear the water, Roy was shaving she was sure. But a few minutes later, a rhythmic marching ditty wafted over the noise of the rushing water, and Riza bit her lip, smiling. She rolled forwards on the bed, kicking her legs free before she quickly lowered herself to the floor. Riza winced at the sudden cold wood floors that met her feet, but rolled her shoulders back, all attempts at sleep already long forgotten. 

If Roy thought he was getting away with leaving her questions unanswered, or escaping to shower alone, he had underestimated her. Riza didn’t bother pulling on her robes as she padded towards the open bathroom door, and instead slipped into the steamed room naked. The singing march grew louder as she crept in, and Riza pushed herself against the wall edging closer to the shower. 

When she pushed the curtain aside she found herself face to face with Roy’s back, the spray of water running down his chest. Riza slipped in behind him, pulling back the curtain behind her and wrapping her arms around his middle as she pressed a kiss to the spot between his shoulders. Roy’s cadence faltered as he brought his arms up over hers, and brushed his thumbs over her hands. Water ran under her lips, and Riza smiled against his skin as she leaned against him. 

“I’m awake,” Riza informed him lightly, leaning on her toes to place her chin on his shoulder. 

“I noticed. I’m a little awake too,” he said smoothly, his body moving against hers as he inhaled. Riza looked down over his shoulder, eyes following the slick rivulets of water downwards. Riza’s warm laugh echoed in his ear, and she kissed his neck lightly. 

“I think,” Riza purred, “I could take care of that for you,” she told him, hand slipping away from his hold, and snaking down the hard line of his hips. His breath shuddered as she lightly traced the soft flesh under his hip, hand moving to palm him. 

“Hmm,” Roy managed, leaning back into her steady hold. He was heavy, but Riza had his shoulders braced against her chest. She kissed his collar as she stroked him once, hands slick with water. The grip she had on his waist tightened as she pulled him closer, leaning against the tile of the shower. Riza laughed as the spray of the water hit them both as she yanked him back, and Roy arched into her hand. Her hand slid over his cock, palm sliding over him. The smell of the soap hit her nose, and Riza nipped the crook of his neck gently as she worked him over, stroking to match the cant of his hips and the arching of his body into her hand. 

“—Good _morning_ ,” Roy breathed, trying not to laugh as she flickered her other hand over his belly gently. His hands smoothed over her forearm, and Roy choked off a groan when she twisted her palm over him, firming her stroke. 

“Morning,” Riza replied, delight evident in her voice as she watched the way her strokes affected him in her hands. He panted heavily, wet hair dripping over her other bare shoulder. “I wanted to hear about everything else,” she said sweetly, dragging her thumb over him. 

“Is _that_ what this is about?” Roy asked, stilling her hand with his own. He laced his hand with hers, winding their fingers together before he peeled her hand away from his body. Roy turned, catching Riza’s second frown of the morning, and laughed. Her back still pressed to the tiles of the shower, Roy bit his lip as he nudged his knee between her legs. Riza’s legs parted, and she threw her arms around his shoulder, hoping to counterbalance against the slippery shower floor as she moved. Dipping forwards, Roy panted, breath hot and warm against her skin. With a smile he studied her, black eyelashes catching droplets of water, and hair soaked and clinging to his head like ink poured over a canvas. Riza felt her body tighten, warmth flooding her, heat building between her legs as suddenly her teasing and joking felt very serious. She grinned at Roy breathlessly as he studied her seriously, mouth moments away from her own. 

“Maybe—,” Riza breathed, before his lips covered hers urgently. Roy kissed her deeply and water rushed off of his back as he pressed against her. She shifted to accommodate him, his erection rubbing between her legs and his hips flush against hers. Riza’s hands dug into his back as his tongue flickered over hers, water running between their lips. A warm finger brushed over her nipple and Riza broke away to gasp as Roy rolled his hips against hers, sliding between her legs. She squeezed her legs together on instinct, moaning as his other hand moved between them, pressing against her clit. Winding her hand into his hair, she moved back against him, kissing him back fiercely for another moment. Their tongues met again and she shivered, the water running hot against their bodies but her blood running hotter as he moved harder.

Belatedly, the roiling hum in her body settled, and she opened her eyes, gasping as Roy dropped his mouth down to her chest, licking and kissing intently. Riza laughed, fighting against slipping as she giggled in his arms. This didn’t seem to slow Roy, and as she laughed he dragged his tongue against the soft swell of her breast, grin still quirking his lips.

“Hey, _hey_ ,” Riza said, pulling up his head in her hands. “Not here. We should,” she said, as he looked at her, black eyes reading her directions carefully. When he seemed assured she wasn’t asking him to stop, mischief relit his eyes, and he pressed another kiss to her neck. 

They threw open the shower curtain together. 

“ _Out_ ,” Riza commanded, shoving Roy out of the shower, watching him stumble backwards out of the spray before she fumbled for the faucet. The water squeaked off and she slipped out after him, still dripping wet. Roy had pulled a towel off her rack and begun to dry off, but Riza pulled it away from him. There were some things that required a sense of urgency he simply couldn’t have as he attempted to towel off. The purple cloth was ripped away from his hands and she leaned against him, leaving watery foot prints on the tile as she moved. 

“Someone’s demanding,” he teased lightly, before he took another playful step back, glancing over his shoulder as he moved back. 

“Tell me what else,” she said, eyes darting downwards before she shivered as they left the humid bathroom air and stepped into the bedroom. Goosebumps ran up and down her arms and she crossed her arms over her chest, covering her nipples from the cool cross breeze in the rest of the house. Roy took another step back to admire her. 

“Everything,” Roy blurted honestly, “Everything else,” he said, falling back onto the mattress with a solid thump as she pushed him lightly back into it. Riza hopped up onto the bed, smiling as she did so, Roy scooting back against the pillows. They left damp spots in the sheets where their bodies pressed down against cotton, and Riza leaned to reach at the tin on the nightstand. 

“That’s why I—“ he continued, before Riza kissed him again urgently, her hands fumbling with the tin before she cracked it open. She licked his bottom lip lightly, shoving the tin back onto the end table. With the small wrapper in her hands, Riza tore it open. Peeling the condom out of its package, she leaned forwards.

“—Want me?” she asked, rolling the rubber down. Her bangs slipped before her eyes, and left tiny droplets of water on his skin. Riza bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth.

Roy propped himself up on his elbows.“That too,” he said, slicking back her wet bangs as he kissed her. Riza broke their kiss to laugh, a melodic hum that settled deep in her throat as she straddled his hips. Roy arched under her, chin tilting to keep meeting her mouth. The sheets beneath Riza’s legs stuck to her skin, and she grabbed at the spots at his sides, gripping tightly. Riza shifted her hips over him, and Roy’s hands went to her waist as she sank down with a slow roll. 

“Too?” she panted, kissing the smooth length of his jaw. His hands tightened on her waist and she twisted, grinding down hard against him. When he gasped, she grinned, repeating the motion. 

“—Need, want,” he said helpfully, hand slipping up to her nipple as he began to stroke her lightly. 

Riza shuddered, leaning into his hand as he worked his fingers over her. “And everything else?” she managed between breathless gasps. 

“Beautiful,” Roy repeated as he thrust up, “Smart,” he said as she gasped, “Perfect, _crazy_ —“ he said, pressing his lips to her ear as he whispered, “—too slow…”

Riza opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that, but his arm slung around her waist and he pulled her flush to his chest. With a brief roll he flipped them both, pinning her back against the damp sheets. Riza let out a surprised laugh, clinging to his shoulders as they rocked back into place. She arched, meeting the quickened pace of his hips and wound her hands in his hair. Their kisses were freer, open mouthed and sweet as she dug her hands into his shoulders and pulled him down faster. 

It was easy to watch Roy’s unraveling, the quickening of his breath followed by the intensity of his trailing kisses from her mouth to her throat. Riza’s stomach tightened as he moaned against her ear wordlessly. The need in his eyes had become so consuming that she looked at him and found herself thrilled. He shuddered over her, mouthing her name against her throat as he came, rocking hard against her. Roy’s hand wound between them, moving his thumb over her clit and Riza tightened around him. Riza gasped, a light and dizzying giddiness striking her as warmth rushed over her body. 

Curling against him, Riza panted as Roy slowed the methodical moving of his hand against her. His own grin was brilliant and more than breathless and when he stopped he was the one to laugh first. It was hardly more than a dry chuckle, but Riza responded with an easy grin of her own. She nuzzled his neck, kissed his jaw, and then grinned as their dry laughs turned into a mess of belly giggles that passed between them like electricity. There was something irredeemably silly about their mess of her bed - water droplets still trickling down their skin and sheets rucked up around them that couldn’t be contained. The spark of her orgasm had left Riza feeling more playful than before and Roy seemed to understand, pressing teasing kisses to her cheek and collar and chin before he kissed her on the lips again. 

She brought her arms around him, wiggling to meet his mouth. Riza gave Roy another lopsided smile to meet his own grin when he pulled away to clean up, and flop down beside her. A pink tinge hit the high marks of his cheekbones, and Riza giggled as she pushed back his hair to reveal Roy’s blush. He was still grinning at her stupidly when she propped herself up on her elbows and pushed him over, laying down across his chest. In utter fairness, Riza realized she wasn’t without her own self-satisfied smile. 

When she opened her mouth to say something, he cut her off again. 

“Compassionate,” Roy said firmly. “Gentle, kind, clever, and—“ 

Riza leaned to kiss him quickly, unable to hide her grin. “—Yours,” she said brightly. 

The look he gave her in response was dazed enough that she thought if he had been still upright he would have fallen back against her bed. As it was, he laying down beneath her and something that Riza could only place as joy crossed his face. Roy’s hands ran up her back lightly and he leaned in for a secretive whisper. 

“My extra electron,” he said, cupping her cheek. “For however long—“

“For _always_ ,” Riza said definitively, voice sobering as she spoke. Though it hadn’t mattered before, it mattered now, and although Riza struggled for the right words, she wanted him to know what she meant more than anything. He was hers, and she was his. The simplicity of it all was terrifying in its own right, but the pained relief in Roy’s eyes made it worth it. He wanted this, wanted them more than he could say or admit to. Through her own fault, Riza wanted it too. 

The quietness he met her with unsettled her, but Riza waited as Roy smiled softly and then swallowed. He nodded, just once and barely more than a twitch, but she saw it and the squeeze in her chest loosened. 

“When we breathe,” he said slowly, “We take oxygen into our bloodstreams, breathing in and out ten to eighteen times in any given minute. Our intake is O2,  and various other gasses in lesser quantities. When we exhale, we release carbon dioxide,” Roy explained, his thumb idly tracing over her sides as she laid her head down on his chest. 

“It’s why everyone has to breathe,” Riza responded. She wasn’t wholly sure of where he was intending to go with his sudden shift in the conversation, but she trusted Roy. If this was important, he had his own way of telling her that. 

“Precisely,” he replied, shifting to take her hand in one of his own. “But the oxygen we inhale to live enters into our bodies and oxidizes things inside of us. To oversimplify — we lose electrons, and reduction is the opposite of that, we gain the electrons back. It’s a cycle, sort of, this _redox_ —” his hand tightened his grip on hers, and Riza squeezed back lightly. 

“But the point is,” Roy breathed, “Everything, everything that is alive, that is you and I, when we breathe — oxidization happens within us. And,” he said, drawing out his last word, “It is setting us on fire. We’re burning, just very, _very_ slowly.” 

“Fire is the element of life,” Riza said quietly, pressing a kiss to his collar. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Roy said, relief flooding his expression. 

“—And loss,” Riza added, simply. “I know you. You’re made of fire and meant for fire, Roy.” Moving up beside him, she hitched her leg over his, and drew cool sheets up around them once more. “And it burns you inside, very, _very_ slowly,” she said with another kiss. “Was that a breakthrough for you?” Riza asked calmly, watching his expression with a dutiful look of her own. This time when he nodded, it was more sure and Riza came to rest on his shoulder once more.

“You’ve caught me,” Roy said with a guilty look. “I don’t mean to mix business and pleasure, but I could feel myself burning.” 

His hand went to her hair, ruffling through it as he smiled. “I think I understood a piece of the code better, now actually. I just have to figure out how to replicate the oxidation process on an accelerated scale. If I take the gasses available to us in any given atmosphere and split the molecules thereby breaking the bonds, I can use any sort of thing to light it on fire. A match, or a lighter or any kind of flint, really,” Roy said seriously tapping her back lightly as he spoke. 

Riza laughed softly. “…All that to tell me I’m so good in bed that I made you _think_ ,” she remarked wryly.

“Well, _yes_ , when you put it that way,” Roy said. “You did spark the revelation. But it just sounds so uncouth to put it that way, doesn’t it?” 

Riza snorted. “You have a one track mind. I’m just not sure if that track is alchemy or sex.” 

At this, Roy huffed lightly, his fingers falling to the notches of her spine. He shifted slightly, biting his lip, and then looked down at her with hooded eyes. “The alchemy of your body is—“ Roy began, falling short with a grin as Riza pressed a finger to his mouth to quiet him. 

“—How long have you been planning to say that?” she asked, moving her finger to unbutton his lips. 

“I missed you,” he said quietly. “So maybe awhile longer than you’d think.” Fingers slipping to the small of her back, he pressed gently. Arching, Riza pressed tightly against him, drawing up her arm over his shoulder. The heat of his body, and the breadth of his shoulders was enough to allow her to curl in further, her palm splaying over his back. Roy grinned fractionally, intent on allowing her to move around him as she pleased, and suggestive in the manner that if she kept it up, they might not start to study again at all. 

Knowing that, Riza hardly minded. She swept her other thumb over his lips again, dragging across his pout before she leaned in and kissed him. His bottom lip fit between hers, and the quiet hitching inhale he gave her in response recorded itself as another sweep of heat running over her body. 

“I know,” she said, and smiled when Roy pulled her in once more to repeat the steps of their dance. 


	7. Chapter 7

The breakthrough in Roy’s research had provided ample progress in decoding flame alchemy. With each passing day they had gotten further and further into unraveling the circles of information that lay within the tattoo, peeling away each layer until a certain key or phrase became unmistakably clear. They took to spreading out across the library floors, then brought the most relevant materials back to her bedroom, taking breaks to have lunch and dinner in between stacks of papers.

Roy’s spirits seemed to have improved with his progress. He laid beside Riza as he fastidiously worked on his theory and formulas, smiling to himself as the code revealed itself. In the quiet breaks between alchemy and mythology, Roy listened to her as she unwound the curious tapestry of the history of the Hawkeye household.

As he had pointed out, there was simply so much that family could mean that she hadn’t explored. Riza knew, there had been more to her family than her mother and her father and Riza had worked through her mother’s journals to find them out. She began piecing together a patchwork understanding of a woman she had never known, quietly making notes of important dates and scribbled names.

Years ago, she had tried to obtain the story of her father’s lineage from him directly, but he had refused. Outside of brief mentions in her childhood, she didn’t know anything about her father’s family, other than that they had been members of society’s elite. Monied and dead long before her father married her own mother, her father’s parents had always been known to her as marble tombstones. Berthold had been a man of science due to privilege and prestige.

Theresa Hawkeye however, was a different story altogether.

The journals her mother had left behind were among her most prized possessions, leather bound and shut with small metal clasps. Riza had read them fondly, searching to understand the woman who loved her father and gave birth to her, but there was very little to be said about her mother’s family. Every mention of her parents had been carefully tiptoed around in her journals. The later journals mentioned an estrangement in the family, and Riza had a few guesses as to why that had been. She couldn’t remember any of her mother’s family, not even in the stirring memories she had of her mother’s burial. Something about the marriage seemed to have exacerbated the upset in her mother’s relationship with her family.

When Riza tossed the first journal to the floor of the library with a soft thump of resignation, Roy looked up from his own notes and gave her a curious expression. She folded her fist tightly, biting her thumb as she stared at the leather covers. There was nothing. Not a single trace of a name or a family member — not a brother, mother, sister, or father, or even a second cousin who hadn’t been caught in the fall out. As Theresa Hawkeye had existed, it had only been on her own, through her own words.

She sighed, prompting Roy to set aside his pencil and chart of his cipher. He scooted closer, proffering his hand for her to take and squeeze. When she linked her fingers with his, she leaned onto his shoulder. “I’m stuck,” Riza explained, her brows furrowing as she stared back at the journal.

“No names you might be able to use?” Roy asked, rubbing his thumb over the back of her palm. Moving forwards, he collected the journal off the floor, and set it down in his lap.

“I don’t know what I expected,” Riza hedged, biting her bottom lip in thought. “My mother never mentions her parents, and when she does they were just ‘mother’ and ‘father’. Nothing that would give me a name, or a location.”  A bright young woman sent to boarding school by her parents described nearly every girl at Riza’s alma mater. It meant her mother’s family had been well to-do, enough to afford the tuition and schooling fees. Flamel was not so far from Central that it ruled out a family from the capital city, but that still left the rest of Eastern to contend with. There was so much missing from the puzzle that she couldn’t see the full picture.

“Your mother went to your school, didn’t she?” Roy said, flipping open the leather journal to its ribbon bookmarked page.

“I don’t know that they would allow me access to their enrollment records. Not that I even know the surname she enrolled under.” Riza knew who Theresa _Hawkeye_ was, but who she had been before she fashioned her new life and name was a mystery. Leaning over Roy’s lap, she flipped the journal pages until she landed on an earlier entry in March. Tapping the cream page to draw Roy’s attention, she traced the ink of her mother’s words.

“My father frightened me,” she said softly. “But my mother wrote about him like he was an escape. He loved her, and the family she resented hated him. You can see how those things might align nicely in a marriage.”

” Mmm,” Roy nodded, “Meeting someone, leaving behind an unsavory family, I could see the appeal,” he said without irony. Riza tilted her head, and raised a brow before she rolled her eyes.

“It tells me my mother was running from something.” Riza let her hands fall away from the pages, folding them back into her lap as she relaxed at Roy’s side. He looked over at her cautiously, and then gave her a warm smile as she rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly. “I don’t have anything to run from. But I’m wondering if I really want to find these people.”

This seemed to sober Roy’s mood, and he twisted, pressing a kiss to Riza’s cheek thoughtfully. After a calculated pause, he pulled away. Riza watched him intently as he closed the journal, running his fingers over the front cover.

“Well, you don’t owe them anything, even if you do find them,” he said, setting aside the book on the rug carpets beneath them. “I’ll help you find their names, and then you can decide what you want to do. They’re out there, somewhere, though. They have to be.” The earnestness of his words was filtered with something else Riza was wasn’t sure she could place. She knew enough about Roy to know what had happened to his parents. But beyond that, there was so much about him that she had never needed to consider or examine. The idea that he had also once poured over books and diaries in order to find any scrap of connection to the rest of his family was reassuring. She had never been the only one searching for something. It also meant that for whatever reason, Roy had never found some of the connections in his family — he had never mentioned them to her.

“You think?” she said finally, slipping her hand over his. Fingers curled reflexively around her, and Roy smiled lightly. He nodded, brushing a fluttering kiss against her jaw before he pulled back.

“I do. I think I have some ideas, too, now that you’ve told me about what you found…” he said, scooting to face her. Slouching forwards, Riza brought her other hand to his shoulder, wrapping an arm over his neck.

“I didn’t find out anything, Roy. I just said that—“ Riza protested as he pulled her in by the waist. Roy gave her a knowing look somewhere between pride and excitement as he tugged. Falling forwards, she allowed herself to settle over his lap as Roy ducked forwards to kiss her. His thumb stroked the back of her palm and she met his mouth eagerly. The short, confident kiss continued as Riza arched on his lap, smoothing her fingers over the short hairs on the back of his head. She ran her tongue over the roof of his mouth and Roy gave a distracted groan; without a second thought Roy’s hands wound into her shirt, fisting the fabric tightly. Pressing her fingers into the back of Roy’s neck Riza massaged him, thumbs pressing into the tight muscles of his back. Unwinding her other hand from his, she moved to unbutton the top of his shirt collar. The soft cotton of his shirt slid underneath her hand, and Roy gently nipped at her bottom lip before pulling away with a breathless grin.

Stroking her waist, he bit his lip before bumping his nose against hers. “I know what you said,” Roy told her softly, “And you told me your mother got married. Which in Amestris requires the marriage be registered…”

With a gasp of realization, Riza threw herself against Roy as she enveloped him in a tight hug. The sudden movement toppled them both, knocking Roy to the thick carpets with a soft thump. Riza kissed him quickly before she sat upright on his chest, calmly tucking her hair behind her ear.

“They had a marriage license. Of course my mother’s given name would have been on that,” she said happily. Placing a finger on the notch of his collarbone in thought, she glanced back at the journal. Her mother hadn’t gotten married in Flamel, but instead had come back to her father’s second home, the estate she had passed away in. If there was any record of the marriage, it would be in the house, or in the town’s small library records. A curious expression passed over Roy’s face as he watched her affectionately, and Riza finally shook her head. The thoughts cleared, she bowed her head back down to his.

“Before I thank you again, what about you? Have you figured anything else out yet?” Regardless of her own goals, Roy’s ability to work on figuring out the alchemy codes had importance as well. A cursory glance towards his things showed that he had written a great deal more in his notebooks. Roy tilted his chin and brushed his lips against hers.

“I have it,” he said calmly, with a distinct note of pride in his voice. “The code, I think I’ve finished cracking the code, and now I’m just going through and arranging the notes piece by piece.”

“Oh,” Riza breathed, a mixture of nervousness and giddy excitement clearing her chest. The swell of warmth tickled under her ribs, and she gave a shaky laugh. “Wow. Really? You’re going to do it —?”

Roy pressed back into the carpet rug. “Almost there,” he confirmed. “I didn’t want to rush anything, I could have finished sooner, but,” he began to explain before she moved to kiss him gratefully. The words halted at her lips and Roy edged his hands back to her waist, a trembling hum building at the back of his throat. Riza grabbed at his collar, stifling her own tiny groan.

When she broke the kiss again, Riza flattened herself against Roy’s body, letting him wrap his arms over her waist. Settling on his chest, she kissed his ear, nose nuzzling his cheek. “I want you here for as long as you can be.”

Roy exhaled. “I’m always here,” he insisted, drawing a line up the side of her waist as he spoke. Riza shivered, curling into the crook of his neck. “—At any rate, it’s not so easy I would have been done that much more quickly. But now I have to finish the translations and then understand them. It’s incredibly complicated. I think I could be here the month and a half.”

“I’m glad,” Riza replied. “It means you can take a break and help me break into the attic.”

“Break into…?” Roy leaned away to give her a confused look.

“Yes. My father sealed the door years ago when I discovered it and went there to play. He didn’t realize at first, but eventually my Governess found me admiring my mother’s wedding dress, and when my father found out…” she fell silent, wincing at the memory of the silent rage that had emanated from him. Berthold had never needed to raise his voice to strike fear into his daughter and the quiet, deadly calm that had followed his hollow explanation that she was forbidden from returning to it had stayed with her.

Clearing her throat, she continued. “He sealed the door shut with alchemy, and I certainly never tried to open it again. But if something like that exists in this house, it would be there,” Riza said. “Roy, if I’m going to find my mother’s family, I need you to help me break in.”

“Will you show me the door?” Roy asked softly.

Nodding, Riza sat up and peeled herself away from Roy’s chest before she rolled up to her knees. Bringing herself to stand, she reached out and offered Roy a hand. He took it, and she pulled him up to his feet before Riza brushed her hands over his rumpled shirt, handing him a chalk piece.

“You should be able to open it without any problems,” Riza assured him when she stepped back. Linking their fingers, she led him away from the library and into the halls. The dark wood paneling of the hall stifled the sounds of their footsteps and Riza slid her palms against the walls. The door to her father’s room and study were before the last narrow staircase that led to the to attic. Hesitating, Riza looked back at Roy before noting the dimness of the steps.

“Although maybe you should have brought a light,” Riza said softly, slipping her hand from his. “Can you grab that hand lamp on the end table? You’re going to want to see this.”

Roy moved back to the end table, turning on the small lamp before he handed it to Riza. The light trembled, burning the wire in the glass bulb and Riza quickly moved to the top of the steps. She braced her hands against the walls, hearing Roy’s soft breathing behind her. Cobwebs gathered at the top of the small steps, and Riza raised the lamp up to cast light over the door that had once been there.

“Wow,” Roy said quietly as soft light brushed up against the cherry wood. Seams of wood buckled under the light, shadows emphasizing the rippling effects of the transmutation there. The breaks sprawled across the wall, sealing the door to the paneling. That alone would have been deterring, but the seal that formed along the door branched outwards, forming a large sculpted wooden tree that ran from the floor to the top of the doorway. A branch coiled around what had once been the metal door knob, melted by alchemy to form a graceful golden disc engraved with a transmutation array.

“The first transmutation was to destroy the doorknob, and once he had done that my father created the array to seal the door on the metal,” Riza said, tracing the grooves of the metal array.  “I’m sure you can undo this but obviously I never tried.”

Turning to look at Roy, she studied his gaze under the dim light. His eyes fell upon the alchemically carved tree, looking just past her for a moment. Reaching out to feel the wooden ridges of the door, he quietly traced the tree marks. Roy turned to give Riza a questioning look.

“This isn’t just a seal to the door,” he said finally. Riza nodded, swallowing something thick in her throat. Roy kneeled in front of the brass disc, admiring the arc of the circle. “It’s a memorial plaque,” Roy said, glancing at the top branches that sealed the door to the frame.

“He could have just sealed the door,” she answered.

“But this is for your mother,” Roy said, “Not just to keep you out, but to…” he trailed off, hefting the piece of chalk between his fingers. “To preserve everything in here.”

“You can see why I thought their marriage certificate would be in there.” The lamp light was lowered to the disc, and Riza shuffled anxiously beside Roy. Silence passed between them as Roy brushed his palm over the old array. He nodded, not looking up.

“The good news is that your father never expected anyone to open this door again.” Roy’s voice echoed in the corridor as he moved back from the door and began to sketch a broad circle against the platform floor.

As he began laying out his array, Roy spoke. “Sometimes when an alchemist attempts to seal something permanently, they add a substance in their transmutation, making the metal an unknown alloy or adding an unusual amount of a carbon or calcium,” the chalk scratched out over the grained wood floor. A second circle looped into the array, and Roy marked out the sharp angles of two inset squares.

“Alchemy is part guesswork, although most objects have an easy to guess compound of elements, the presence of an unknown element can result in a failed secondary transmutation or in the worst case scenario, a rebound,” he explained, as Riza leaned over his shoulder to hold the lamp light.

“And how do you know that’s not the case here?” Riza asked, looking back to the medallion array on the door. She’d never considered tampering with it, and had long ago stopped pursuing her father’s greatest talent. Still, Roy was a dutiful teacher and it was worth it to understand. If only she could have known then why her father had locked them both out.

“The original array sealing the door is still intact. If you added something, you’d have to account for it there,” Roy told her, pointing to the other array. “Your father knew you wouldn’t be able to open it, and he certainly never expected me to. To be honest, I never thought to look for your attic,” Roy said as he looked back over his shoulder at Riza.

“He was only keeping us out,” Riza filled in helpfully.

“That he was,” Roy agreed. After he wrote out the last set of calculations in the runes, he set aside the chalk, letting it roll away from him. “Ready for this?”

“Go for it,” she said, taking a step back to press up against the wall.

Roy exhaled, rubbing his palms together briskly before he leaned forwards on his knees. Clapping his palms against the chalk array, hot blue light arced upwards from the floor. A loud snap accompanied the swell of the floor from the bottom of the door, cracking the door free from the frame. The door shook briefly and as it wiggled free of the frame, Roy quickly sketched out a second array on the repurposed doorknob. A second transmutation retracted the lock from the door, swinging the heavy wood forwards, stopping as it hit Roy’s knee.

Dust billowed from the room, and a wave of stale air lifted up from the attic. Riza turned, removing the light from Roy’s line of sight as she pushed the door open, ignoring Roy’s yelp as she drove the door further into his knees. When she raised her lamp, she gasped.

“Oh,” Riza said in hushed tones. “My mother’s wedding dress.”

Roy scrambled to his feet, rubbing his knees as he stood up. He leaned on the door, pressing it to the far wall as Riza stepped into the attic. The lamplight cast over the corners of the room untouched by the dim sunlight pouring in from the high windows, and Roy coughed as thick air hit the back of his throat. Riza took a wavering step forwards as she looked at the mannequin adorned in a floor length gown positioned on the side of the room.

The dress was the way she remembered seeing it as a child, a high waisted silk that looked like a stream of blue moonlight trailing to the floor. Delicate spider work lace fell over the bodice and the skirts, and softly worn matching beaded slippers had been tucked under the hems on the floor. There were moth holes the fabric, but when Riza reached out to touch the lace sleeves they still felt as smooth and strongly sewn as they had years ago.

“It’s beautiful,” Roy offered as he came to stand behind her.

“I don’t want to get married like she did,” Riza replied softly, tearing her gaze away from the wedding dress. “Not to run away.”

“So don’t,” Roy said, wrapping his arms around her. His exhale fluttered against her hair, and Riza clasped his arm to her waist. Warm lips pressed to the back of her neck and Riza felt his nose brush against her skin. “You don’t need to. I’m right here.”

His thumb swept over her arm, and Riza felt the gentle quirk of his smile at her neck. Looking back at the dress, she sighed softly before dipping her head low. Chin tucked to her chest, Riza blinked once, taking in a shaky breath before she straightened. Riza twisted in Roy’s arms, turning to face him. She rolled to her toes and kissed him.

“I know. Covalence,” she said, kissing him briefly on the cheek before she eased down on her feet.

“Yes,” Roy breathed.

Riza stroked his cheek softly before she turned, leaning into his chest. Looking over his shoulder, Riza saw the large wedding chest against the other wall of the attic. Dust danced in the window light and Riza pulled away to set the lamp on the floor.

“I wonder if I’ll find it in there,” she said quietly. Roy turned to see what she meant, and Riza filled in, “The chest. Look at it.”

It was a heavy wood with large metal handles on either end, and a beautiful polished finish. Riza knelt down before the chest, and gestured for Roy to join her.

“Help me lift the lid,” she directed, pushing open the top. Roy quickly hefted half of the chest, giving her a surprised look before Riza pushed the lid against the wall, propping it open.

“Your father wanted to hide all of this?” Roy asked, as Riza began to pull out old baby clothes from the top of the chest’s contents.

“It reminded him of my mother. I don’t think he was able to move on. Like if you severed a—“ Riza faltered, then swallowed. She looked at Roy. “It could ruin you to lose the person you loved most. He wasn’t able to handle it anymore.”

Roy reached to squeeze Riza’s hand before he pulled out what appeared to be another journal and a hand sewn teddy bear from the box. The pile grew slowly as Riza pulled out bundled letters, embroidery, a small jewelry box containing earrings, and a rose that Roy suggested had been alchemically preserved.

It was at the bottom that she found another shallow wooden box with a short metal latch. Roy held it out for her while she popped the latch and opened the lid to reveal a lined interior and a series of heavy parchment papers. The first was a certificate of Riza’s birth, the second a deed to the estate dating back nearly half a century, and the third shifted forwards in her hands as she lifted it out of the box.

“It’s here,” she said in awe, tracing the heavy wax seal at the bottom of the certificate with her finger. “The great country of Amestris hereby registers and recognizes the marital union between one Berthold Hawkeye and one Theresa Hawkeye, birthname--” she breathed, heart skipping in her chest as she formed the next words in her mouth.

“— _Grumman_.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes explaining my long hiatus at the end. Enjoy.

The name “Grumman” lingered in Riza’s mouth like the bitter tang of blood that came after biting your cheek too hard. It had taken mere moments for Riza and Roy to share a look of dawning comprehension over her mother’s heritage before fury settled in Riza’s chest. Wilhelm Grumman was known to them both — he had been Roy’s recruiting contact upon entrance to the military academy. But he was also in the public’s eye as a Major General. Riza could recall hazy details of her grandfather’s face from engravings in the local papers and muddy news film reels that had come before the shows she had seen with her friends in downtown Flamel’s new theater. He had beady eyes and an unkind face; smug and arrogant behind sharp wire glasses.

There had been little to do about it in the attic, dusty and smothering as it was. Roy had immediately confirmed her hunch about the Grumman name, and Riza wasted no time mulling over the coincidences. Not much could be inferred from the name alone, and so Riza had rescued the last of her mother’s diaries, as well as a small tin photograph of her, her mother, and father all memorialized in a kinder time. It occurred to Riza that it was also one of the rare times she’d seen her father genuinely smile, and for that alone, the photograph was worth taking from the attic.

Her mother’s remaining journal painted an even less kind picture. Roy had left Riza to reading the diary of the young Theresa Grumman undisturbed in the library while he worked, but it only took a day and a half for her to piece together the most pressing parts of her mother’s puzzling past. By mid-afternoon on her second day of reading, Riza paused in the middle of an entry, and cast her gaze towards Roy.

“…I don’t know that looking for this was the right thing to do,” she said quietly, biting her lip. She couldn’t overlook the weight of the knowledge she had just gained on them both. In her mother’s own words, her grandfather was not a good man. A man, who, when pressed, only had his own best interests in mind, even at the expense of his own wife and children. Riza swallowed dryly.

“Isn’t it better to know who your family is, than to be surprised by it?” Roy asked, setting aside his notes to scoot closer to her. “At the very least, he’s someone we can easily track down—“

“—No, Roy. My grandfather he — listen,” Riza took a shaky breath, the words swimming before her on the page, and began to read, “My father spends his days as a Brigadier General with other men in sharp uniforms, but he spends his nights keeping the company of women hardly older than myself. I see how it makes mother fall ashen and silent; she wouldn’t dare say anything, for the shame and humiliation it would bring us all,” Riza paused, swallowing. “I knew when Berthold proposed, even suddenly, that I had to leave. I told the General that I was going to marry, and I had never seen him so furious. His face stained red and he told me coldly that I couldn’t be his daughter and a whore at the same time. I left.”  

The words dripped coldly enough that Riza felt a shiver build down her spine.

My mother eloped, Roy, she - the last time they spoke, she told him.” She cast a look back towards the ugly word neatly written in her mother’s beautiful handwriting. A whore. For getting married, and getting away from her father’s controlling gaze.

It wasn’t until she felt Roy’s arms wrap around that she tore herself away from her reverie. “My father was a lecturer at the Girl’s Academy,” she explained. “In her final year, my mother fell in love with him during class. And when she graduated they pursued their feelings immediately. My mother saw someone who respected her. Someone who wouldn’t spend his nights in another woman’s bed.”

“That’s what love is,” Roy offered, his hands linking with hers. Riza relaxed, and leaned against his chest. “Faith, and respect.”

“I know,” she said. “I doubt my Grandfather knows I was ever born. He’d already disowned her long before she was pregnant. I think I have an Uncle, as well. Edmund Grumman. And my grandmother, Victoria — they don’t know I exist.” It was strange to believe that she had an entire family of people who didn’t know she had ever been born. The names played in her mind, Wilhem Grumman. Victoria Grumman, Theresa Grumman, Edmund Grumman. A family, once. She wondered idly if her Grandmother had looked as regal as her mother had.

“Riza, I don’t mean to disappoint you, but your Uncle, he — he died years ago during a skirmish with Aerugo. He might’ve had a family, but I never met them. I always assumed the General took an interest in me because his own son died. I’m sorry,” Roy apologized.

Had Riza ever met such a man, she might have felt bereft. As it stood, her mother’s brother seemed to have been a similar man to her grandfather: not someone she would have wanted to know well. If her Uncle had proudly gone to fight in the battles with Aerugo, or if he had been forced into it with little other options as the son of brass in the military, she would never know. As her father had discussed with her, in the end, dead was dead. There was no way to measure the impact of an individual soldier in protecting the thousands of civilians in the Southern Quarter. Riza turned, craning to look back at Roy. Rolling her shoulders, she shrugged. It was no particular loss to her, this man she’d never met, never even been told about.

“Did he even mourn, I wonder,” Riza said, tracing the word Edmund in her mother’s journal. “For either of his children?” After another moment’s thought she looked up back at Roy. Furrowing a brow, Riza removed her finger from her unknown uncle’s name. “Roy, you can’t trust this man with your life.”

“Your grandfather?” he asked. “Riza, I understand what he did to your family, but he’s a ranking officer, and a commander—“

“—He could be the best commander in the country, and he’d still be an awful, horrid man underneath it. You saw my father — he was the better alternative.”

“You’re right,” Roy replied. “But Riza, I — Your grandfather is going to sponsor my application to be a state alchemist. He offered, even though I’m young—“

“—Of course he offered, Roy. Don’t you see?” Riza said, pulling back from their embrace. “He knows who your teacher was. He knows my father was against the military, and had the ability to outpace anyone they’d already recruited. By recruiting you, he can have access to your knowledge. Well, he would have but—“ But now, both of them were too dead to feel the affects of petty revenge from a controlling man.

“Are you saying I should turn down the examination date?” Roy asked. Uncertainty played across his face, and Riza shook her head. She knew that he didn’t like the sound of the idea, but also that it was his dream that brought about his creeping reluctance to give his state certification up.

“No. I trust you, I just don’t trust him,” Riza said. “Alchemy is what I have to keep you safe. Something that my grandfather wants so badly, he’ll do anything to have. But it’s the anything part that worries me.” It wasn’t just that she believed her father’s alchemy would truly have power beyond belief, or that she knew it would keep Roy safe with all her heart. But her grandfather’s spite and vindictiveness — that was an element of power all its own, more personal and more powerful than a mere grab for power.

“But we’d be playing into his hand,” Roy said calmly. His extensive notes on the broken code had gotten him that much closer to finishing his understanding of the alchemical process of flame alchemy, and while neither of them had yet said it, they were both sure that once it was in their hands, it would not simply go away. That sort of power couldn’t be unlearned.

Riza nodded slowly. “I know. And they’ll be able to call upon you,” she said, resting her hands on his shoulders as she adjusted his collar quietly. Under her careful hands, she could make out the lines of Roy’s throat moving as he swallowed. “I hate to be presumptuous, but I don’t think you’re Grumman’s man,” Riza said, kissing his cheek. Under her lips she felt the twitch of his smile building.

“Are you saying I’m your lapdog?” he asked, laughter barely contained in his question as he moved to kiss her.

When he withdrew, Riza shook her head. “I’m saying whatever my grandfather wants from you, or from my father — you’re not loyal to him. You’re not Grumman’s man. But you’re going to let him think that because you want to protect this country. And I want to protect you.”

The logic was all there, in Riza’s mind. They both knew he had one chance to make this happen, after all, in the end Berthold had changed his mind about things. Not about the military — but about Roy. It was one of the few things Riza was sure her and her father had come to see eye to eye on: no matter what had conspired, they believed in Roy’s abilities, and his immeasurable intelligence. More importantly, Riza knew without a shadow of a doubt that her father had believed in her ability to discern his moral character. Looking back, it made so much sense why her father had hated the military. Her own grandfather had sent men to recruit her father in the hopes of getting his daughter back and ending her parent’s marriage in favor of money and a state alchemist’s license. The distrust and hatred had a personal element; Berthold Hawkeye had been preserving his wife’s memory and wishes.  

“I’m not even sure what I’ll do with flame alchemy, yet,” Roy admitted. “I know by looking at it how powerful it is, but they’ll put me behind a desk, doing research, not protecting men and women.”

“So protect them in other ways, You’ll find something,” Riza said. “Imagine what the citizens of Amestris would call you. Roy Mustang — Light Bringer. Morning Sun, maybe, or Phlogiston Master, if they believe you succeeded at the theory all the ancient alchemists spoke of. Material fire,” Riza said in a hushed voice.

“Phlogiston Master. I hope not — sounds like a terrible name. The common man wouldn’t even know how to say it, not that most people know about alchemy,” Roy said.

“No, I imagine they wouldn’t. Perhaps Blaze. Something brilliant.”  

There was hope left in the world, Riza supposed. Hope that Roy was an entirely different kind of soldier, and belief that he would trust her more than he ever would a man he knew very well was hoping to use his power. Her father had long since given up the idea that he would become the Flame Alchemist. Riza knew that while fire alchemy had been his life’s work, he had long ago lost his own fire when her mother died. There was no spark behind her father’s discerning eyes, and that had been where Roy had come in.

Roy was hope, and light.  

“I think you’re a good man, Roy,” Riza said definitively. Her grandfather was not a good man, but an excellent commander. Roy, on the other hand — all she would ever ask of him would to be a good man first, and a good soldier second. That had been what had driven his desire to fulfill his duty so many years ago. Giving Roy a wry smile, she added, “A good man, but not a very tall one.”

“Hey—“ Roy objected. “I’m taller than you. That counts for something.”

“Not a measure of much,” Riza said, rising to her feet. She held out her hand, offering it to Roy, pulling him to follow her as she moved. When he rose to his feet, it became clear that he stood barely above her. Biting her lip, Riza led him away from the worn rugs of the library and towards the couch. When he settled on the cushions, she lingered, standing before him for a moment before she dropped to his side.

“I suppose it won’t matter long that you’re a head shorter than the rest of them,” Riza said, leaning into him. “You can’t measure a man’s stature by his height alone.”

“I can’t tell if you’re complimenting me or not,” Roy replied, shifting so that she fell against his chest. “…Are you certain you want me to go through with this?”

“Yes,” Riza said firmly. “Your alchemy will help so many people. I just haven’t decided what the step after this one is.”

It made the cream colored calling card of the military command all the more important to her, now that she knew it all. But the next step wasn’t clear, and would take careful consideration long before she entered into the complex games of control and power her grandfather liked to play.

It was clear that she would need to be careful, more clear that for Roy to serve and protect as he wanted, he would need her. At the very least, to keep him safe. It was a life she could negotiate for, Riza thought. A life where they served, and decided together how much of Roy’s abilities could be used by the military.

She would grant them all light, but only at her own bidding.

“—I’ll figure it out, though.” The time would come, and by then, Riza would know. She felt Roy nod beside her before she turned.

“I may tease, Roy,” Riza began, changing the subject, “—but I like your height well enough. It means I’ll always see you eye to eye and it certainly saves me from a crick in the neck.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, you’re the right height for other things, I suppose,” Riza remarked lazily, shifting as she settled a leg over him, sitting in Roy’s lap. “Who my family is never changed how well we fit.”

“No, I suppose we really have made a game of working under their noses,” he said, inching closer so that their noses touched, and Riza could feel the warmth of his breath.

“Precisely,” she answered, meeting him in the middle for a warm kiss. Riza would make sure this change worked in their favor, by using her own grandfather, if she had to. It wouldn’t take much to leverage things in their favor if they were careful players.

Roy’s kiss grew insistent, and she pressed against him urgently, rocking forwards onto her knees and against his hips as he wound his fingers into her hair. Riza murmured in appreciation before she dragged away, kissing the corner of his mouth and then his cheek in succession. When she reached the edge of his cheekbone, she closed her eyes and sighed softly against his skin.

“You’re going to have to become a better liar,” she teased. “Or they’ll find us out right away just by looking at you.”

Roy relaxed into the couch’s back, shivering as she massaged her fingers into his neck. “Find what out?”

With a laugh, she dropped to his jaw, kissing him. “All of it. Look at your face,” she said, brushing his hair back, and meeting his gaze. The warmth in his eyes made them look almost brown when she started back at him, and he smiled at her when she smoothed her hand over his cheek.

“What should we do, then?” Roy asked, drawing his fingers over her shoulders in small circles. Oftentimes, Roy used this gesture to distract Riza from her thoughts, but this time, she only slid deeper into them, his touch fading away as she considered the possibilities. There was the unavoidable prospect of Grumman to be dealt with — surely the General already knew Roy’s master was her father, and had sought Roy out for that very reason. But it was unknown whether Grumman also knew of Riza’s existence, if the recruiters from the military had told her grandfather it had been Riza who had driven them away when they had come to demand her father’s knowledge. Perhaps she was an unknown, and perhaps she wasn’t. But her relationship with Roy was entirely a secret, and it would have to be kept that way.

Riza bit her lip. If this had been anything else, she mightn’t have worried so much, but flame alchemy was different. It was powerful beyond imagination, and it was meant to be Roy’s, not her grandfather’s. Alchemy research was turned in to the government and omissions would have to be made. It seemed to Riza that for the moment, their only shelter was the very thing that threatened their careful plans. The whole situation seemed more complicated than she had first imagined.

Even so, it was too late to turn back now. Riza sighed. “Well I can’t have you mentioning me. But we do the best we can — I know my grandfather is a General, but I doubt he can handle both of us together. You’re more clever than people realize, Roy.” Not that he particularly needed reminding of that fact — Riza didn’t want to stoke the fires of his egos too much.

“I trust you. I know you won’t just hand him everything on a platter,” Riza said, leaning in further to Roy’s touch as he smiled.

“Mmm,” he agreed quietly. “Remember what I said about not being alone?” Roy asked absently. She nodded slowly, inwardly cringing at her initial adverse reaction to the idea of a proposal. Though she wouldn’t say it now, being married to Roy would have provided some sense of security to their relationship, but lacked in assurance of his well-being. And knowing now that she might not see him again for some time after he finished learning her father’s alchemy, Riza could admit, at least to herself, that she regretted turning down the idea of marriage. It wouldn’t be for lack of desire that Riza refused the notion — but because she cared too much to simply hope Roy was safe.

She wasn’t sure he would understand if she explained it now, but in due time, Riza knew Roy would forgive her, would accept it, would even realize it was going to be better her way.

“I remember what you said — that we have each other. I’m not concerned about my grandfather being family to me, Roy. There’s no — no feelings lost there.”

Roy carefully brushed back her bangs, nodding slowly. “I also have another — idea. So put aside your mother’s journal for the evening; I have something to show you tomorrow. I think I have a plan.”

“A plan?” Riza asked, raising a brow. She tugged on a lock of his hair affectionately. “What would that be?”

“You’ll see,” Roy said. “Something your grandfather can’t touch, I can promise you that,”  he added carefully. “We already keep our secrets. This will be no different.”

Riza nodded slowly, unsure of Roy’s direction, and unwilling to try and dampen his good mood. He seemed so pleased with himself, and so sure, that she didn’t want to ruin his confidence.

“Alright then,” Riza whispered, leaning in to his shoulder. “I’ll put this aside tonight. I’ve upset myself enough. And tomorrow you can show me whatever it is.”

“You’ll love it,” Roy said. “I promise.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Without dragging out every detail, I decided to delete my original blog on tumblr due to extreme harassment that had gone from just fandom wank to very personal harassment. What was best for my health was to step away from the FMA fandom for awhile -- and in that time I've graduated college with honors, worked two jobs while in school, and been accepted to a graduate program. My intention however, was always to finish this story, for my own gratification if nothing else. 
> 
> It took awhile to re-write and edit this chapter which I had so long ago set aside. My thanks to my beta.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will maybe come once a week, or once every two weeks, depending. Thanks everyone!


End file.
